The Raw Art Review: A Journal of Storm and Urge

The brilliant and intense poetry in Joel Peckham’s tour-de-force, MUCH, can not fail to move us. The poems are so rich and deep with meaning that they resonate emotionally, psychologically, spiritually and even physically. The use of long lines and overflowing enjambment moves our reading along at an exhilarating pace and is done so artfully that the pure act of reading this book delivers a palpable pleasure. This book is brimming with novel use of language, but never to the detriment of feeling and understanding acutely the details of the poetic epiphanies, as well as the reverberating fulcrum at each poem’s heart. The imagery is vivid and tactile, securely situated in recollection that is at times tragic and painful and at other times joyful and ecstatic. This is such a good book. I loved it. I have read it at least a dozen times. So, grab something soothing to drink, sit back in the overstuffed chair and prepare yourself for a read that, with its insights and compassion can’t fail to transform your mood, your day and perhaps your life. The miracle of exceptional poetry.

Today I made the difficult decision NOT to submit a batch of poems to a publication that required me to reformat my poems to double-spacing. For me, modifying my poems with double-spacing significantly changes their impact. The primary argument for double-spacing seems to be an editorial one – double-spacing makes the writing, in particular prose writing, easier to consume. It is easier, for example, to distinguish between a period and a comma when reading double-spaced lines. I don’t believe it is the artist’s job to accommodate the editor’s job. It is not the artist’s responsibility to facilitate the job of editing for the editor. Especially when our submissions include a reading fee.

At the Raw Art Review we do not require you to reformat your submissions. In fact, we want to see them exactly as you devised them.

RUNNERS-UP (ALPHABETICAL BY TITLE)

HONORABLE MENTION (ALPHABETICAL BY TITLE)

The poems in Gary Beaumier’s elegant book, Dented Brown Fedora, are enlivened by specters. But, Dented Brown Fedora is seldom a book of terror. It is a book of resonating and quietly ecstatic love. While there is haunting and loss, sometimes painful and powerful sorrow, the poems are fundamentally a celebration. The language and imagery are so refined and artful that even the most difficult memories and retrospections sing out with the kind of optimism that only Fine Art can manage to deliver. The poems in Dented Brown Fedora have achieved a kind of superb, elevated alchemy. They convert everything – all of the poet’s experience, whether joyful or melancholy – into beauty. As readers, as seekers, we will be led deep into each thing by these poems. In there, within this book, within each poem, at the poetic heart of an experience or a place or a person, somehow we find what we have been longing for.

UnCollected Press and The Raw Art review presents the rich and powerful poetry of Pamela Sumners. The poems of Ragpicking Ezekiel’s Bones are a thrilling experience of how many unique and exceptional ways a poem can be built by a poet who artfully applies the full spectrum of literary tools at her disposal. No two poems are alike. Every poem is replete with complex ideas and adroitly applied forms. Pamela Sumners is an expert with all the literary tools. The reader who immerses herself/himself in these poems is bound to find finely wrought poems that, often leave you shaken, dumbfounded and wondering just what has happened. Sure, go ahead and sit yourself down in your favorite overstuffed chair in front of the fire. Take a slug of your coffee or tea. But try not to get comfortable – and definitely avoid getting complacent. You will need all your wits and skills for this book. You will not be disappointed. This is a read like no other. See what William Slaughter has to say below:

All the world’s a poem for Pamela Sumners. In Ragpicking Ezekiel’s Bones, she practices what might be called “the poetics of inclusion.” How to get everything in . . .is the challenge she sets for herself, and Ragpicking is all the proof I require that she is way more than up to that challenge. Sumners’ work is “immodest,” in the highest and best sense of the word, and ambitious, an increasingly rare virtue in an age of small poems. She writes “large” poems, poems that “contain multitudes.” She manages, somehow, to get all manner of folks into them, and all her “folk” have stories to tell, stories motivated by desire, by “urgency and longing”—the same motivation that readers should bring to her book. The reward for such readers of Ragpicking Ezekiel’s Bones will be memorable, even indelible, lines and whole poems that will not let you leave them, that will stay with you and stay with you, all your life.”

—William Slaughter, editor of Mudlark: An Electronic Journal of Poetry & Poetics and author of The Politics of My Heart and Untold Stories

My Bendzela’s exquisite book of “evolutionary fables and other emblematic tales” is now available for sale here on The Raw Art Review website. This is a graceful and elegant, beautifully crafted book that is unlike anything we have published before at UnCollected Press. The book will satisfy your scientific as well as your artistic mind. It penetrates into understanding itself where science and art become one. The intimate lives of fauna (and flora), wild and domestic, sentient and perhaps not, immediate and born in past epochs, are revealed to us. The result is a series of vignettes and epiphanies that can be poignant, devastating, elating but are always acutely fascinating. This is a book that is the product of the writer’s compassion for living things – compassion in the truest sense of the word – compassion that is empathy to the point of losing self to the other. Mike has done the exceptional. He has made all of his characters, even the least of them, real and meaningful to us. You must read this book!

UnCollected Press/The Raw Art Review is now offering editorial services to its contributors and followers. We offer the editorial services outlined below for poetry, prose (fiction or non-fiction), essays, critiques and any other writing genres. Editing services can be quoted and contracted as a 4-Step package or any of the steps can be quoted and contracted individually. We will work with you to help make editorial services affordable.

STEP 1 – Immersion Editing – A UCP/RAR Editor engages with the writer by completely immersing herself/himself in the writer’s manuscript with a goal to cultivate a deep understanding of the written material. Once our editor has fully immersed herself/himself in the writer’s work and begins to understand the essence and focus of the writer’s vision, pointed advisement and insight will be provided. The goal is to to assist the writer in achieving his/her goals and intentions. UCP/RAR editors are qualified, experienced experts who understand that it is completely inappropriate to rewrite, change or in any way pervert the writer’s voice, creative vision and fundamental tradecraft innovations. To the extent possible, our editors will only advise and assist from a fully-informed place of immersion in the work and with an open-minded and respectful engagement with the writer.

STEP 2 – Copy Editing – UCP/RAR editors provide focused, granular editing looking for errors of omission and commission, including but not limited to errors in grammar (syntax), spelling, punctuation, capitalization, linguistic consistency/clarity/flow, sentence structure, phrasing, line breaks, rhythm and cadence.

STEP 3 – Style Editing – UCP/RAR editors cautiously and respectfully assist and support the writer in making the most out of language, style, figures of speech, rhetorical devices and voice. This is a fully engaged give-and-take, with the editor striving to understand what the writer is trying to achieve and tailoring advisement based on a deep understanding of the writer’s intentions. In addition to a continued focus on elements covered in STEPS 1 and 2, UCP/RAR editors will be considering nuances of word and sentence flow, readability, consistency and impact. The power and relevance of metaphors, images, language, characterization, ideation, point-of-view, content, figures-of-speech and rhetorical devices will be considered along with any other aspect of producing a written work-of-art that may be important. During all editing steps, but in particular during STEP 3, UCP/RAR editors approach the writer’s work with compassion. The compassionate approach is one of understanding and empathy. Editors strive to find the meaning and relevance of the writer’s written artwork and collaborate from a place of mutual insight.

If you are interested in either the individual editing services or the 4-STEP editing package, please email us to discuss details and tailor pricing at the following email address:

editor@therawartreview.com

Small George (Clare Chu, author)

Farewell (Sophia Falco, author)

Grieve (James Fedolfi, author)

Head Smashed in Buffalo Jump (Dean Gessie author)

Under the Flinders Street Clocks (James Walton, author)

Dinosaur Teeth (Simon Maddrell, author)