Post by moira on Nov 2, 2008 15:35:08 GMT 2
Beltway Poetry Quarterly
www.beltwaypoetry.com
Intro / background / mission /history of your 'zine:
Since January 2000, Beltway Poetry Quarterly has published poetry by authors who live or work in the capital of the United States. Kim Roberts edits three issues a year, and the fourth issue is guest edited by another area writer (who has previously been featured in an issue). Each issue typically features four to eight poems by five authors. We strive to showcase the richness and diversity of Washington area authors in every issue, with poets from different backgrounds, races, ethnicities, ages, and sexual orientations represented. We have included Pulitzer Prize winners and those who have never previously published. We publish academic, spoken word, and experimental authors--and also those poets whose work defies categorization.
Three special issues honor the history and legacy of poets who once resided in Washington: the Memorial Issue and the Profiles Issue include essays and interviews celebrating DC's rich literary history. The Forebears issue, continuing this exploration, was released this past summer.
Four other special issues are arranged around themes. The Whitman Issue is an anthology of 38 poems that examine the poet's life and the themes of his writing, published in 2005 to honor the 150th anniversary of the first publication of Leaves of Grass. The Whitman Issue was co-sponsored by the Washington Friends of Walt Whitman, and co-edited by Kim Roberts and Saundra Rose Maley. The Wartime Issue, guest edited by Sarah Browning, is an anthology of poetic responses to the ongoing conflict in Iraq. The DC Places Issue features a poetic geography of the city, co-edited by Kim Roberts and Andrea Carter Brown. The Evolving City, co-edited by Roberts and Teri Ellen Cross, includes poetic responses to construction, preservation, gentrification, the identity of neighborhoods--all the myriad ways cities change over time. (A fifth themed issue, celebrating museums, will be published in January 2009, co-edited by Kim Roberts and Maureen Thorson.)
The Poetry News section is updated monthly. This section lists new book publications and new issue releases by DC area presses and journals, calls for entries open to DC-area writers, poetry readings, and other events of interest occuring during the present month. (The months of July and August are always a combined listing.) Phone numbers will be listed if available; please contact the sponsoring groups directly to verify the accuracy of this information. Please note that the Poetry News section only lists readings and performances in the greater DC region, although listings of Calls for Entries and Special Events include the whole Mid-Atlantic.
The Resource Bank offers extensive links for poets and their audiences in DC, MD, VA, WV, and DE. We include listings of organizations that give grants to writers, membership organizations that offer writing classes and other services, reading and performance series, small presses and literary journals, conferences and festivals, and literary blogs from the Mid-Atlantic, as well as a more geographically-restricted listing of DC-area libraries, museums and bookstores. A special feature of the Links section is a listing of other web sites devoted to individual area poets past and present from the greater DC area, from such historical figures as Langston Hughes and Sterling A. Brown, to such contemporary writers as Jane Shore and Hilary Tham. Another link lists Artist Residency Programs, and I believe ours in the most complete listing of this kind to be found anywhere. With programs across the US and in many other countries, these links can help artists of all disciplines find a place away from home to create new work.
Genres:
Poetry, essays about poets with strong ties to Washington, DC
Editors/owner:
Kim Roberts is the author of two books of poems, The Kimnama (Vrzhu Press, 2007), and The Wishbone Galaxy (WWPH, 1994), and has published in literary journals beginning with every letter of the alphabet. Roberts has been the recipient of grants from the DC Commission on the Arts, the Humanities Council of Washington, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. In addition, she has been awarded residency grants from eleven artist colonies. Her website: www.kimroberts.org.
Example piece:
The DC Places Issue: An anthology of 52 poems celebrating specific sites in Washington DC, with an amazing interactive map (published Summer 2006). Contributors include: William Carlos Williams, Baron Wormser, Robert Lowell, Philip Dacey, Scott Hightower, Linda Pastan, Sterling A. Brown, Elizabeth Bishop, Terence Winch, Elizabeth Alexander, Fleda Brown, Thomas Sayers Ellis, May Miller.
washingtonart.com/beltway/brownintro.html
Note:
Subscriptions are free!