Editor Interview: Clockwise Cat

Poems Polemics Appraisals

Exquisite Corpse, Counterexample Poetics, Outsider Writers, Up the Staircase, The Battered Suitcase, Word Riot

Arthur Rimbaud, Jorge Luis Borges, Tristan Tzara, Pablo Neruda, e.e. cummings, Andre Breton

I publish a triangular theme of Poesie, Polemics/Satire, and Appraisals (Reviews). This sets me apart because many others focus mainly on poetry and fiction, and maybe reviews. Very few indulge in political polemics. We have a very progressive slant.

Please read a couple of issues first to absorb what we are all about, and please please PLEASE follow the guidelines.

One that follows the guidelines!

They submit too many pieces.

I prefer writers to say SOMETHING rather than just submitting without some sort of introduction. But the writer need not go into great detail about the submission. Previous pubs are fine and give me an idea as to what that writer's style might be.

I do read every piece to the end, but I can also usually tell very quickly if the piece is not right for us.

Sometimes I might put it aside for a day or two, if I am not feeling good about it, but yet something is nagging me about it, as well. Otherwise, it is accepted or rejected, and that's that.

I usually respond right away to a submission, acknowledging receipt of it, and then I tell that writer that I will be in touch within a few weeks. Once I have accumulated a bundle of submissions, then I go through them and make my decisions. It's a pretty dry process. I am constantly receiving submissions so I just kind of glide along like that.