A Prayer for Sobriety

«Hart Crane, Wystan Auden, Robert Lowell, Theodore Roethke, Delmore Schwartz, Elizabeth Bishop, Louise Bogan, John Ciardi, Dylan Thomas, James MacAuley, John Berryman: this is only a short list of remarkably talented 20th Century poets who destroyed themselves with alcohol. I am well along my way to doing the same, which is why I am seeking help at St. John’s.

Curiously, none of these gifted writers wrote compellingly of the thing that slowly or suddenly killed them, thus leaving me “open field running” as a football coach might say. As part of the reconciliation with the truth prerequisite to any recovery from alcoholism, I have gathered together my poems of the last decade which bear upon this affliction... »

The Chimaera is honoured to publish these poems, whose import extends far beyond the issue of alcoholism, and addresses the more general human issue of addiction. Tim Murphy's poems on can be found in The Chimaera #2.

Nigel McLoughlin's Dissonances

Nigel McLoughlin's new book Dissonances is out at bluechrome. Nigel has two poems, Cailleach and Snapshot in the current SCR, as well as translations in The Chimaera.

He'll be reading at these venues:

7pm Thursday 28th February 2008

The Poetry Cafe
Betterton Street
Covent Garden
London

and

Buzzwords at The Exmouth
Bath Road, Cheltenham

Sunday March 2nd 2008
7pm for the workshop
8pm for the Reading.


"...Dissonances is a fiercely ambitious collection which succeeds in creating its atmosphere of unease and voices McLoughlin’s concerns articulately and forcefully."

—Round Table Review.

Pat Jones in the moving pictures

Our own brilliant Pat Jones has one of her inimitable graphics animated by the clever Beau Blue to read a Rachel Dacus poem, 'One Night Light', using Rachel's voice, here. How cool is that! Rachel Dacus was one of the poets who gave great support to SCR in its infancy—and SCR of course went on to spawn The Chimaera.

Check out more of Beau's great poetry animations at Blue's Cruzio Cafe.

Across the Grid of Streets

Quincy Lehr had work in The Expatriate Chimaera as well as in the Proto-Chimaeric II.

Now he has his first full-length poetry collection, Across the Grid of Streets up on amazon.co.uk.

The hardcover edition is here.


The softcover edition is here.


And there's more! For the accompanying chapbook, go here.

The quintessential Quincy! Another glorious triumph to rival his famous victory in a poetry contest sponsored by Tig Neactains Pub Galway, for which he won 300 quid.

Singing in the Dark

You might remember Alison Brackenbury's poems from The Chimaera #1, as well as 'Out of the Box' from the SCR Horror.

Just released is her new book of verse: Singing in the Dark. Alison's website is here.

The Chimaera received its copy a couple of weeks ago, and it is delighted! Here is a poem from it reprinted in The Guardian.

Highly recommended!

Sound system update

If you’re among the minority who’ve had trouble playing the sound files in Issue 2 of The Chimaera, please try again. We’ve changed over to a system that should work for more people.

Provided you have Flash V7 or later installed — as the great majority of users now have — you should be able to play the sound files in any modern browser. If you don’t have Flash, you can get it HERE. The file download is quite small (under 2Mb).

Chimaeric Kudos Aplenty!

Our contributors are a talented lot. Not only did Frank Osen win The Best American Poetry Poem Challenge II, but Sally Cook (also in The Chimaera #1) was awarded the third prize in that competition for her poem "As The Underworld Turns".

But there's more. In Dr. Dorn's 2007 World Order Of Narrative and Formalist Poets Contest, Sally won First Prize in the Gutenberg to Heisenberg category for her poem "Fruit in His Future", Second Prize in the Richard Wilbur category for her poem "Changes", a tie for Second Prize in the Dylan Thomas Award category for her poem "The Flowered Days", and for Third Prize in both the Limerick and the Alfred Dorn Sonnet Award for her poems "A Passion for Fashion" and "Icy Cycle", In addition, she won numerous Honorable Mentions for other poems. Her poem "She Walks, She Talks" won an Honorable mention in the Ben Jonson Award category, and in the the Elizabeth Bishop Award she won an Honorable Mention for her poem "Diana of the Shopping Mall".

Even more: David Landrum won a first place in the WOFP 'From Cellini to Bernini' category for his poem 'Two Davids'; a second place in the June Kraft Memorial Award for 'Garden Menagerie'; a second in the Elizabeth Bishop Award for 'Dirt' as well as four honorable mentions.

Still more: Gail White won the WOFP Herrick competition, and Susan McLean tied for third place in the Felix Stefanile Triadic Sonnet Award for her poem 'Doors'.

And Quincy Lehr won 300 quid from his local pub in Ireland for a 'love' sonnet entitled 'We All Have Our Needs'. Irish pubs have poetry contests? That's better than chook raffles.

Well done, Chimaereans!

SCR6 is afoot

...or a jar

...or a door—a portal into other universes!

...or an online poetry magazine.

Anyway, SCR, disreputable parent of The Chimaera, has a Travelling Special as its theme for January, 2008. It's now up and running at

http://www.shitcreekreview.com/

Climb on board the little canoe! It's perfectly safe...

Wander amongst the verbal and visual artefacts crafted by

Mark Allinson, C.B. Anderson, David Anthony, Alison Brackenbury, Emily Brink, Patrick Carrington, Antonia Clark, Robert Clawson, Peter H. Desmond, William Doreski, Dennis Greene, Nigel McLoughlin, Tim Murphy, Amy Nawrocki, Cindy Nelson-Nold, Stephen Payne, Thomas Rodes, Peter Wyton, Mark Bulwinkle, Justin Evans, Patricia Wallace Jones, Peter Schwartz, R. K. Sohm, Donald Zirilli, Nigel Holt and Captain Philip Barrie. Lurking somewhere behind the scenes are Peter Bloxsom and Angela France.

The scientific reasons for SCR's January issue coming out in February are explained with amazing clarity here.

The theme for our next issue (May, 2008) will be 'Masks'. You will
find details on our Submissions page. Submissions for the Shit Creek Review May 2008 issue must be received by March 23rd, 2008.

Happy paddling!

Chimaeric Kudos

Co-editor of The Chimaera, Peter Bloxsom, has been short-listed for the Open Poetry Sonnet Competition, which has a first prize of £1400! Mike Alexander, who contributed to the Proto-Chimaeric II, is also on the short-list. Well done, and Good Luck!

Frank Osen, who contributed to The Chimaera #1, has won The Best American Poetry Poem Challenge II. What an esoteric challenge! What a strong poem!