Atlas Poetica 2 now on sale

Dear Friends and Poets:

Atlas Poetica 2 is finally complete and on sale! We had major technical challenges with this issue between the changes at the printer and the death of my computer, but we persevered and overcame them all.

The cover is especially beautiful this issue. It features the Dasht-e Kevir, or 'valley of desert', the largest desert in Iran, as photographed from space. It, like all the covers for Atlas Poetica, is drawn from the 'Earth as Art' collection, courtesy of the United States Geological Service (USGS) and the NASA Landsat Project Science Office. Issue 1 featured the Anti-Atlas Mountains in Morocco, and the cover of issue 3 will feature Gosses Bluff in Australia. Many thanks to Denis Garrison, our editor-in-chief, for the covers and other technical assistance.

Issue 2 features tanka sequences, tanka prose, and individual tanka in a variety of forms and formats. Poets take us to twenty-three countries as they search for their past, present, and future, seeking their own sense of place in a very large world. Whether confronting the ancestral church or the closed gates of prison, searching the family farm, temples, subways, or seas, our poets find themselves with a world of strangeness on their doorsteps, and a world of familiarity half way around the globe. The poets of ATPO 2 ask what it means to be who they are, what place is their home, and why it matters. The ragged lines of war and tragedy cross their personal histories, but beauty and memory persevere.

Blurb for the issue:

"We believe that tanka’s accessibility is directly related to the conversational way in which it was classically used, and that now more than ever, human beings need to speak to one another—not with the rants and shrills that are the usual public discourse, but with eloquence and grace. By speaking about their experiences of place, the poets of Atlas Poetica have touched on many deeper issues: the value of the natural environment, the importance of our communities, the travails of the modern world, and the everlasting love of beauty that may be the only true definition of civilization. The appreciation of beauty is not a luxury and not a fascination with superficial features, but the ability to peer into the details of existence and find joy. Nowhere is this more important than when burdened with the devastations that humans wreak on each other and the environment."

This issue also includes poet biographies for the first two issues, as well as announcements and international resources. Remember to send your announcements well in advance; the editorial staff at Atlas Poetica plans ahead so that difficulties can be surmounted while still bringing the journal out on time. Some of the announcements sent to us were not included because they would have been over by the time the journal hit the stands. Remember that the journal goes on sale on March 1 and September 1 every year. Only announcements that address the journal's interest in tanka poetry of place will be published. (Haiku-only announcements will not be published. There are plenty of venues already for haiku news.)

Atlas Poetica 2 can be purchased online either through Lulu.com or Modern English Tanka Press.

http://www.lulu.com/content/2940354

http://www.modernenglishtankapress.com/catalog/ATPO/atlaspoetica2.html

Now that ATPO 2 has finally been put to bed, we will be working on revamping the website and submission guidelines. But first, I am taking a bit of a breather to work on the skipjack Martha Lewis, the old wooden sailboat I crew aboard. Martha still dredges for oysters in the winter months, making her one of the last vessels in North America to fish commercially under sail. Between the demands of work, changes in my personal life, and the difficulties of the journal, I have not had much time to spend with Martha. You will see the promised changes starting in September.

The reading window for Atlas Poetica 3 is September 1 - December 31, 2008. ATPO 3 will be on sale on 1 March 2009. Planned topics for the topical section include the urban/suburban/built environment, and summer.

Thank you for your support,

~K~

M. Kei
Editor, Atlas Poetica
A Journal of Poetry of Place in Modern English Tanka
Published by Modern English Tanka Press, Baltimore, MD

AtlasPoetica.com
ModernEnglishTankaPress.com
AtlasPoetica.blogspot.com

To keep abreast of developments, please subscribe to Keibooks-Announce list at or via sending email to: Keibooks-Announce-unsubscribe@googlegroups.com