Raintown Review

The Raintown Review Anthology Coming Soon!

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Raintown Review AnthologyThe Raintown Review Anthology has, believe it or not, been underway since 2009, yes, since the earliest days of the new editorial team consisting of myself and Associate Editor Quincy R. Lehr. (We’ve since welcomed on board Assistant Editor Jeff Holt, of course, as well.)

It was Quincy who volunteered to keep an ongoing file of our pick of the poems from each issue—the poems that surprised us, revitalized us, or brought tears to our eyes (Okay, that was mostly me.) All I did was agree to the plan, say yeah or nay to a few poems, and confirm that when we felt ready, Barefoot Muse Press would publish and administer it.

We felt ready early this year. We got the manuscript planned, Jeff invited the poets whose poems we wanted to publish (most of whom responded with an eager yes), and we even arranged to have the launch reading at Poetry by the Sea 2015.

And then, in March, my mum got sick and passed away a month later. Needless to say, the plans for the Raintown Review anthology went on hold. It was hard enough for me to be in England for 5 weeks looking after my Dad and coping with my mum’s hospitalization, while trying to distance teach my Poetry & Math class at Stockton, and continuing to manage the website and the registration for the Poetry by the Sea conference. Everyone was naturally very understanding, and the reading for the anthology at the conference went ahead with no physical book in sight!

But now at last the physical book of the Raintown Review anthology IS in sight! I’ve been working on the layout and the cover design today, as you can see, and the preliminary pre-order page is now up on the Barefoot Muse website. (Pre-order for $12 or $10 for additional contributor copies.) And, ladies and gentlemen, I am psyched, because the one thing you already know about the Raintown Review anthology—just look at that contributor list!—is that the poems are shockingly good.

Singing in the Raintown Review

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Raintown ReviewOkay, so I have not been a devoted blogger lately. In fact a certain friend of mine, who has checked my blog religiously for over 2 months now (or so she says) will be positively amazed to see her daily ritual turn up a result. Said result is not due to any tardy enforcing of a New Year’s Resolution, by the way—I keep those for things I am even less likely to accomplish, such as losing ten pounds and giving up wine—but to the long-awaited arrival of my latest love-child. No, not a baby brother for Becky and Lorna, but Volume 8 Issue 2 of The Raintown Review.

Table of Contents

And what a stonking good issue it is, from the striking cover photograph by Katy Maslow to the stalwart list of contributors on the back. Also poems by Ned Balbo, Paul Bone, Greg Alan Brownderville, Michael Cantor, Jehanne Dubrow, Maureen Gallagher, Kevin Higgins, Rose Kelleher, Rick Mullin, Timothy Murphy, Aaron Poochigian, Deborah Tyler-Bennett, and others. We have incisive book reviews by Nick Friedman, Fintan O’Higgins, and Aifric Mac Aodha. In my editorial I survey the general run of metrical poetry-oriented magazines (we come out looking well, strangely enough), while Associate Editor Quincy R. Lehr is on a tear about something or other in an essay entitled “Down with ‘Good Poetry!’” (Just read it; the title makes sense in context.) In short, you are going to love it! (Contributors and subscribers should start receiving copies within a week or so.)

Speaking of which, if you haven’t yet, or haven’t recently, think about subscribing. Yes, I know that there are a gazillion magazines out there asking for your hard-earned cash. But The Raintown Review is “essential reading for the formal poetry community” or so it says in my essay…

And that might mean YOU!