The Raw Art Review: A Journal of Storm and Urge

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)

 

Our strategy for displaying artwork on the cover of our journals is to use a “Gallery Presentation Style”. If a work of art moves us enough to use it on one of our covers, we want the piece to be presented without distractions. So, no layovers of any kind – no titles, no journal issue numbers, no conflicting images and no other impositions will be encumber the image. We also use high quality cover stock and a matte finish. We do not see cover art as an element of cover design. We see cover art as autonomous and essential. The rest of the cover is there to offer the cover art to our readers and viewers in the best possible setting.

The print version of The Raw Art Review Spring 2020 is being shipped to contributors today. Please allow up to 1 week shipping interval for locations in the contiguous United States. Please allow up to 2 weeks for shipments outside the contiguous United States. More remote international locations may take longer than 2 weeks to arrive.

(Yes Summer 2020! We are a bit behind because of 2020 challenges, but we are catching up!)

Go to the journal issues menu selection at this URL to see samples of past issue covers:

https://therawartreview.com/journal-issues/

1. One (1) Winner will have his/her artwork featured on the cover of the Summer 2020 issue of The Raw Art Review: A Journal of Storm and Urge. Additional examples of the winner’s artwork will be featured at multiple locations in the journal. Winner will also be presented as a “Featured Artist” on the RAR website home page and will be given his/her own Featured Artist Page on the RAR Website that will include up to 20 images of his/her work.
2. Shortlisted contributors will be published in The Raw Art Review Summer 2020 Issue.
3. We are looking for original artwork in any medium that manifests the energy and power of Storm and Urge.
4. Please send up to 5 photos of any artwork in any medium using any style.
5. The better the photo the better the post. We recommend you send images that you are happy with yourself.
6. Anything from photo-realistic to abstract art is welcome. Photos of paintings, drawings, sculpture, pottery, mixed-media, etc. are all welcome. Photography is welcome.
7. Simultaneous submission is fine.
8. Previously published or shown works are fine, as long as you own re-publication rights.
9. Current Deadline is November 30, 2020. Deadline may be extended depending on volume of submissions.
10. Contest winner will be announced in early December 2020.

The Raw Art Review and UnCollected Press have established the RAR Inner Circle Award. Editors at RAR will be nominating, discussing and selecting Poets, Fiction Writers and Artists who have established themselves as regular contributors of exceptional writing and artwork to the journal issues, contests, anthologies and books published by UnCollected Press. The artist’s body of work as expressed in other publications and venues will also be considered. Winners of the RAR Inner Circle Award will be offered the opportunity to publish a book with UnCollected Press and will be able to introduce and collaborate directly with UCP/RAR Editors on their own projects, as well as projects they introduce from other writers and artists. RAR Inner Circle Award winners will be given a Feature Artist Web Page that can be updated with new material on a regular basis and will be represented in a new Featured Artist section of RAR Quarterly Journal.

The first RAR Inner Circle Award winners will be announced within the next few weeks and will continue periodically thereafter.