Monday, July 21, 2008

The Final Manuscript Is Off to the Press

... well, off to the editor anyway. Who, in Steve's case, is the press, too. So, I guess it all works out.

It feels like it has taken forever to get this manuscript ready. You would think that after 6 or 7 years of sending a manuscript out and about to various contests and friends, etc., the thing would be pretty much ready to go, right? Well. I guess I was a glutton for punishment because I decided that the manuscript had to be totally re-imagined before publication.

I had never really been happy with the arrangement of the poems in the manuscript. I experimented over and over again with different arrangements and could never come up with something I liked. I was occasionally satisfied with it, but never really excited about it.

After about a month or so of tinkering since I got back from Moscow, I'm pretty sure I have it this time. The fact that the book is coming out in October really made me capable of seeing the big picture this time, I guess. (I really think much better under pressure than I do otherwise; that's what makes me such a functional procrastinator). I finally saw the forest through the trees this time. And I think it reads better than it ever has before. In fact, I can't imagine it reading any better than it does right now (though I could just be basking in the afterglow here).

We'll see what Steve has to say once he's read it.

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Name: Matthew Shindell
Location: San Diego, California, United States

Matthew Shindell used to live and write in Phoenix, Arizona. He now lives and writes in La Jolla, California.

The Poetry Postcard Project:

Stay tuned to this blog for updates on the status of the Poetry Postcard Project.

Go to the Poetry Postcard Project website to see the project and find out how to participate.

Where are my poems?

Read a PDF of my chapbook, Were something to happen it would be both funny and interesting. Copies of this limited edition chapbook are no longer available.

American Letters and Commentary Issue 17 - "Hoo Ta Ta, Hoo Ta"

American Poetry Review July/August 2004 - "It sounds like a saxophone tugging across a field"

Black Warrior Review v30n2 - "Sidekick"

FENCE v6n2 - "Drinking with the Ventriloquist's Dummy" & "Parable of the Boy inside the Deer"

Hayden's Ferry Review #25 - "The Willow"

Hayden's Ferry Review #35 - "The Monkey's Skull: Where Do Good Newsmen Come From?" & "Made Easy"

Jubilat 7 - "But Emerson Says, 'The body is a metre. The eye appreciates finer differences than art can expose."

The Melic Review - "In Short, a Pleasant Day :: The Man Arrives, Hooray!" "The Same Words :: Order of Harpoons," & "A Bird’s Head Rolls Into Two Baskets :: Walkie-Talkie"

No Tell Motel - "Order of Harpoons :: Digitalia :: Dobre Vecher" 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Read my discussion of the poem here.

Northwest Review - "Clink" & "Bear-Caught"

Octopus 4 - "About the Author," "Four Star General" &
"The Day :: Born :: The Red Door"


Pleiades 24:2 - "Speech of Artificio, a Character in My New Play" & "Inc."

Tarpaulin Sky v2n2&3 -
"Two Jokes About Bears"


Unpleasant Event Schedule - "He Called Her Forest (or was it Forest?)" & "The Brain Full of Bourbon (concerning the doctor and the simulation of Switzerland)"

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