Funny conservative poetry: a contest
For the most part, conservatives do horrible political satire. Ahem. Ahem. Ahem.
Browsing our sales table today, I found a book by a National Review contributing editor named W.H. von Dreele. It’s a book of poems. “Funny” poems. It’s called There’s Something About a Liberal (Arlington House Press, 1970). Here’s one:
Dr. Goldwater, Call Surgery
Although I live in New York State,
I’d cheerfully accept my fate
If Barry sawed the seaboard off
And watched us vanish in a trough.
New York is full of liberals. Hah!
Yeah. Well. How about this:
Repression, Anyone?
Take me back to boola-boola;
Row me to the Raritan
Strum a uke for dear old Duke;
Raccoon it, on rattan.
Tired watching campus cuties
Brawling for their next degree.
Sock ’em up and lock ’em up.
Then throw away the key.
Really stuck it to those campus radicals, there. I’m glad those kids got shot at Kent State.
Also in the book? At least two Ted Kennedy Chappaquiddick poems. Which I think we all know is a classy thing to write funny doggerel about, right?
This book calls for a contest, I think.
What say we help ’em out. We’re writers. Some of us are probably funny. If you are a liberal, drink deep from your well of self-loathing. If you are a conservative, bump your game up a little. Write me a funny, conservative-leaning satire in verse. Best poem gets a copy of There’s Something About a Liberal AND a copy of Ariana Reines book of slaughterhouse poems, The Cow. (Balance.)
Go.
The HTMLGIANT So Many Books Contest
HTMLGIANT is holding a writing contest.
The prize is the Dalkey Archive 100 books for $500. If you want to contribute to the prize pool, let us know in the comments and we’ll add it to the package.
We want your writing, up to 3,500 words however you want to assemble them.
The theme: love stories, however you interpret those two words. The numbers 100 and 500 should also somehow be involved in your writing and not just as an afterthought.
HTMLGIANT contributors will select 10 finalists. Special Guest Judge Rick Moody will determine the winner of which there can be only one.
The winning entry as well as the work of the finalists will be published on a sweet website to celebrate their words.
Send your entries both in the body of an e-mail and as an attachment (.doc/.pdf/.rtf) to contest@htmlgiant.com.
There is no fee to enter.
You do not need to submit a cover letter.
You do need to include your name and address so we know where to send your prize(s) if you win.
Deadline is Midnight, Sunday March 21. Winners will be announced on Tax Day, April 15.
Questions? Ask them in the comments or e-mail contest@htmlgiant.com.
Adam Robinson—
Whoa, you’d be crazy not to read “Object,” by Richard Wehrenberg, Jr over at Slingshot, then say something about it somewhere on the Internet. These “please help” campaigns are risky, but I appreciate the faith, passion and sacrifice that goes into them. Sacrifice? Well, damn, Josh Kleinberg is giving away a bunch of (20) really great books to people who do him the kindness of promoting the stories. 75% of the books, he says, will be hard for him to part with. Go take a look. (Google alerted me to this deal because one of the books he’s giving away is mine. Thanks Josh!)
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Premium Rump Round, now with FREE TICKET CONTEST
I’ve gotten so used to thinking about The Rumpus as one of my go-to sites, and linking to something of theirs in damn near every web round-up I do, that I’ve nearly forgotten about the days when I used to put posts together that focused exclusively on them. Let’s do that now.
Top of the site: an interview with the painter Caris Reid; funny Woman Elissa Bassist on “How to Move to San Francisco.”
And in Books Stuff: Virginia Konchan reviews Catherine Bowman’s The Plath Cabinet; Andrew Altschul on Marisa Meltzer’s Girl Power: The Nineties Revolution in Music; Catherine Brady on Eric Puchner’s first novel, Model Home; and that Steve Almond piece about self-publishing that I linked to yesterday.
All that and more. But hey, here’s something else important: New York folks, on March 11, Rumpus editor Stephen Elliott will be lecturing on “Writing From Experience,” something he damn well knows something about, at the LGBT Center on West 13th street. $30 reserves you a space, and you can buy your ticket here, but there’s also one free ticket up for grabs, and you can win it by leaving a comment on this post. From Stephen: comments can be “about anything at all, it could be why they should get it, what their project is about, or just random thoughts about the weather.” He’ll be looking over the thread and will choose the commenter whose post somehow says “Yeah, I’m worth giving free shit to and spending two hours with.” So, yeah. Happy Friday!
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PS- Art by Ryan Lauderdale, who has a show opening at Red White Yellow gallery in Houston on March 13th.
Artifice Magazine #1
New magazine Artifice, out of Chicago, has just published their first issue, with new work by many radicals, including myself and our own Roxane Gay:
Carol Berg – Jessica Bozek – Blake Butler – Neil de la Flor – Andrew Farkas – Ori Fienberg – Elisa Gabbert – Kelly Haramis – Roxane Gay – Kyle Hemmings – Tim Jones-Yelvington – Gregory Lawless – Jefferson Navicky – Lance Olsen – Joel Patton – Christopher Phelps – Derek Philips – Cynthia Reeser – Kathleen Rooney – Davis Schneiderman – Maureen Seaton – David Silverstein – Susan Slaverio – Kristine Snodgrass – William Walsh
Featuring:
Koalas, terror, that one time you watched your father boil lobsters, infidelity, faithful robots, faithless robot dogs, compromising situations, and at least one missing body.
In the spirit, they have offered to give away three free issues to HTMLGiant readers.
All you have to do is looking at their submission wishlist, which lists the kind of stuff they are looking to publish, and make a suggestion of something to add to that list. Examples are: # 1 piece you’d tell a child not to put in their mouth, # 3 halves of a story, # 1 game code that unlocks a secret level. Comment with your suggestion and 3 winners will be picked tomorrow afternoon.
In the meantime, consider picking up an issue, and/or sending your work!
[P.S. This is the 3000th post at HTMLGiant. Weird.]
Blake Butler—
Andrew Ervin is offering a copy of John Banville’s Kepler, signed by Banville, to the person who can correctly identify the most books in his milk crate bookshelf posted here. Send your list to our email and Andrew will find the winner tomorrow night.
Blake Butler—
The very generous Brad Green has offered to award a copy of Molly Gaudry’s We Take Me Apart to an HTML Giant reader of choice. Because the book is so persuasive in the way it links childhood space with food and movement of time, comment with a food that evokes some long memory of yours. A selected winner gets the book late tomorrow evening.
Contest winner/Annalemma call for submissions
by Chris Killen is the winner of HTMLGIANT & Annalemma’s “When Writers Get Off” contest. Congratulations Chris. Some notes from judge Chris Heavener of Annalemma:
First of all, yall should be ashamed of yourselves and your filthy, disgusting, brilliant minds.
Outstanding In the out-of-control category:
– Jesus’ Cum
– 1984 = Nineteen-tranny-whores
– The Diarrhea of Anne FrankOutstanding in the fucking hilarious category:
– Twats Heating Gilbert’s Grapes
– Leak, Mammory
– Dong of SolomonRunner up: The Magic Mountin’
Winner: Finnegan’s Wank
Gives a new definition to masturbatory writing. Submit 250 words of this nasty novel and we’ll post on annalemma.net soon.
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: Annalemma will be publishing a collaborative effort entitled “Finnegan’s Wank,” a work of fiction containing multiple accepted pieces. Each writer is to submit ~250 words; one submission per writer, and, as succinctly offered by Chris, “No furries.” This is a private venture, independent of HTMLGIANT’s influence, and will be moderated autonomously henceforth. Thanks for playing along.
Burch Chapbook Winners
We were really blown away by the number of entries for the chapbook giveaway as well as the very interesting ways in which you take yourselves apart. Jereme, we would be inclined to answer your question with a question. We thank everyone who entered.
Without further delay, Matt has carefully considered the entries, meditated, read some tea leaves and chosen his five favorites. If you’re one of these folks, e-mail me your address (roxane at pankmagazine dot com) and we’ll get the book in the mail to you early this week.
How the winners take themselves apart:
1. Teresa turns it up loud, takes an acidbath and gets sweaty.
2. Marco tears in with tongs and staple guns.
3. Bob follows the Way and does it ’til it’s done.
4. Cameron accomplishes it with panache, mustachioed.
5. Vaughan first undoes the leather.
Congratulations to you all and a big thanks to the anonymous donor who made this giveaway possible.
“When Authors Get Off” Contest
Per Annalemma Editor/Publisher Chris Heavener’s comment in the “When Authors Get Hungry” winner post, HTMLGIANT and Annalemma are joining hands for a “When Authors Get Off” contest, to be judged by Chris, who will procure the generous prize—the current and all back issues of Annalemma (or, if you’ll allow me the spirit, Analenema).
In the same fashion as with our preceding contest, name some porn parody titles (Girl with Curious Pubic Hair; Go Down, On Me, Moses; Howard’s End, etc). A call for submissions will also follow this contest, for a collaborative piece named after the winning title, edited by Chris and published online at Annalemma. Details forthcoming here with announcement of the winner.