A little while ago, my cousin, the painter, posted another work that inspired me to go ekphrastic. It is a fashion illustration by René Gruau. I believe it is under copyright, but you can see it here. I love the way the folds of the cloak in the back are indicated only by a thick, black, curved line, coming down from the outline at the top like the tail of a letter. And I like the old-fashioned glamor of the more fully realized top.
So I sat down and hammered out "Character Sketch," a poem about the places that painting took me. I submitted it to Autumn Sky Poetry Daily because the magazine came up early in the alphabetical listings at Chill Subs, and because in an interview, Editor Christine Klocek-Lim says this about why she started the magazine: "A long time ago in a poetic landscape far from here, I disliked most of the poems I read in current publications. They didn't seem to have the flow of imagery and gusto I wanted to see, yet because I was participating in several online workshops, I knew that those brilliant poems existed in the wild." She also said she looked for "an emotional framework to which a reader can relate."
My sentiments exactly! Except I find the lack of movement, gusto, and emotion to be an ongoing issue. I checked over a couple of poems, just to make sure the editor and I were on the same page, and, yes, we seemed to be. I revised for an hour or so, to make sure the narrative created an "emotional framework" undergirded with sufficiently imaginative imagery, and to police my line breaks (about which Editor Klocek-Lim is a stickler, according to the submission guidelines).
Then I sent it in, not hoping for much. Apart from my doubts about whether I had adequately captured the magical effect of the painting, I felt that my poem's "emotional framework," which owes something to classic Hollywood, might not be deemed moving enough. Moreover, Editor Klocek-Lim does not send out rejections. Instead, submitters must check every day for a week, and if their work doesn't appear, they know they didn't make the cut. I know from my own editing experience that hundreds of submissions might come in over the course of a week, so my chances would be slim.
Still, I checked conscientiously and was delightedly surprised Thursday to find not only my poem on the site, but a lovely Editor's Note that gave an intriguing assessment of the poem and called attention to its "brilliant imagery." Thank you, Editor Klocek-Lim!
I have subscribed and look forward to encountering the gusto of others. I also plan to submit to the magazine's "Saturday book feature" of a poem from a book written by one of the contributors to the magazine. Fingers crossed!
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