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Writing with Grace

As a writer since I was about seven, publishing has always been a goal .Poems have appeared in magazines such as Poetry, Virginia Quarterly Review, Midwest Quarterly, Antioch Review, Yankee, West Branch, Poetry East, The Literary Review, Grain, The Windsor Review, The Antigonish Review, and many others since the mid-60's; anthologies such as Rising Tides: 20th Century American Women Writers, When I Am an Old Woman, I Shall Wear Purple (and the three subsequent collections from Papier Mache Press, Inheriting the Land, American Sports Poems, Best American Poetry 2000, The Poetry Anthology: 1912-2002, and others, and sports articles in Sports Illustrated, Runner's World, Ohio Runner. My three books still in print are Rumors of Ecstasy...Rumors of Death (Ashland University Press/Barnwood Press), Before I Go Out on the Road (Cleveland State University Poetry Center), and Child, House, World (Hiram Poetry Review series). The last won for me the Ohio Poet of the Year award for books published in '92. The album from the Papier Mache anthology, Grow Old Alone With Me, The Best Is Yet To Be, was nominated for a '97 Grammy award in the Spoken Word category and included a poem of mine. I've done readings and writers' workshops all over the US for many years.

So--so far, so good. I have two manuscripts in the works: a collection of poems based on my physical and spiritual relationship with the natural world tentatively titled Deer in the Mall, and a book length poem about my relationship with my Canadian boyfriend and the contrasts between my life in the country at home in Ohio and in the suburbs of Saskatoon with him from 1993-2001. Tentative title: Grandma Grace and Canada Dan: a love story..

But I always wanted to edit a literary magazine of my own, and in 1970 started The Listening Eye at Kent State's Geauga Campus where I taught for 25 years. For many years it was a vehicle for student work, but in 1992  I opened it up for national submissions, and since then we've published some of the top writers of poetry and fiction in the country: William Stafford, Walter McDonald, Simon Perchik, Lyn Lifshin, and many others. We read submissions from Jan. 1-Apr. 15: max four poems/ four pages. Fiction: limit two stories, max three pages doublespaced each. Creative essays, same. Annual contest for cover artist: drawing, painting, photo, whatever, relating by any stretch of the imagination to the title: The Listening Eye. Cover artist's work to be featured in the magazine as well. $30 prize. Also a $30 prize for best sports poem each year. Mail to Grace Butcher, ed. The Listening Eye Kent State University Geauga Campus, 14111 Claridon-Troy Rd., Burton, Ohio 44021, Jan. 1-Apr. 15 only. Be SURE to enclose self addressed stamped envelope for a reply and to have work returned. Publication in early fall.

Poems

My reading of What the White Hourse Said © 1998     in RealAudio® and text.

First appeared in Nightsun, No.17, Fall 1997. Nominated for a Pushcart Prize

The Return

First appeared in Aethlon: Journal of Sport Literature. XV:1 Fall 1997.

Where the Poems Come From Now That I Ride a Morotcycle;

From Before I Go Out on the Road, Cleveland State Poetry Center 1979. Second printing 1992.

Poems of Mine on the Web

The Literary Review - Spring 1998

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©1996 Grace Butcher