Pear Slip commentary on Ekphrasis: Poetry Inspired by Art

I received a nice email today from Therese Broderick who maintains the blog Ekphrasis: Poetry Inspired by Art; she offered some nice commentary on Pear Slip (I love attentive, thoughtful readers!).

Here's a preview:

When you see the phrase “still life,” what image comes to your mind? Now that I’ve read the very engaging and inventive poems in Matthew Hittinger’s chapbook Pear Slip, I think primarily of pears.

Check it out here!

Finalist for the 2008 New Issues Poetry Prize

Now that the winner has been announced I think it's safe to reveal I was one of 29 finalists for the 2008 New Issues Poetry Prize from New Issues Poetry & Prose.

This is the first contest placement for my second full-length manuscript, Skin Shift, which has increased my confidence in this project. I've been pondering lately how I'd feel if Skin Shift were accepted for publication before The Erotic Postulate. Large portions of SS were written during the same period I was composing TEP, but it didn't fully come together until a few years after I finished TEP, so I've always considered it manuscript #2. All these manuscripts accumulating...I'm beginning to feel backlogged...

UPDATE 5/24: Received a hand-written note from New Issues today informing me Carl Phillips placed Skin Shift in his top 5 manuscripts. Woo hoo!

Pear Slip Praise

A happy discovery. Someone included Pear Slip on an Amazon.com top nine list: "Favorites of a Self-Taught Literary Snob". This is what they have to say:

"This book is a great gift for someone who enjoys poetry, but doesn't have the patience for something too long. The work is fresh and smart."

Thank you "greeningupsmart", whoever you may be...

And a nice user review on Barnes & Noble.com (which is a doctored version of the Spire Press note back from the book release party):

This is (not (just about)) a pear
A reviewer, a poetry professor, 02/06/2008

'Pear Slip' is focused fruit, both rare and ripened. I think most will agree that these poems are excellent, juicy, plenty to ruminate -- and join me in my anticipation of this newly discovered poet's work to come. This short but cohesive work is sure to enhance any collection.

"the heart strobed superimposed" part 2

Here is a preview of "the heart strobed superimposed" recorded at the second screening of the film on Friday April 25th at the Brandeis/Hartt Collaborative Concert in the New Wing of the Hartford Art School.

Always a bridesmaid...

Another surprise in the mail today: found out I was a semi-finalist for the 2008 Walt Whitman Award. This would be my second time as a semi-finalist, though the letter doesn't specify for which manuscript I submitted, so it may have been the Erotic Postulate again or Skin Shift for the first time. It remains a mystery, though whichever manuscript it may have been, it was one of 38 semi-finalists from over 1000 entries.

The Erotic Postulate was one of 25 semi-finalists out of almost 1300 submissions for the 2006 Walt Whitman Award.

And to go back a bit further, The Erotic Postulate was a finalist in the 2005 National Poetry Series, one of 20 I think out of nearly 1400 entries.

One of these years I'll get to kiss the groom...

UPDATE: Mystery solved. It was for The Erotic Postulate.

Specular Reflection Semifinalist for the 2008 Snowbound Chapbook Award

Just a quick note that a new project I've been working on, Specular Reflection, inspired by my travels to Jamaica last year, was named a Semifinalist for the 2008 Tupelo Press Snowbound Chapbook Award. Not bad for its first time out.