12th driving practice outcome

Hah! The instructor gave me the green light to practice driving on my own because, according to him, I'm no longer a public hazard — as long as I stay off the busy streets. I'm squeaky pleased.

Have finally gotten the hang of downshifting before taking corners. Yay!
Now I just need to improve my visual periphery when it comes to crossing pedestrians/pooches/vehicles and staying on the right side of the road. Hee.

Recent acceptances:

Nthposition accepted two poems, On tiles and All Perfectly Abandoned for their December 2006 issue. Very quick response times, too!

     Submission date: 28 August 2006
     Reply date: 31 August 2006

And wheeeee! Wicked Alice accepted five poems for their "Alice in Wonderland" issue, due out around mid to late September:

1. "I'm available to go mad now." — Valerie Fox
2. Inevitably
3. And She Ripped the Turtle Soup Recipe
4. rabbits (from An Encyclopedic Guide to Counteracting Bad Luck)
5. Decapitated lilies

Preparing this submission just tickled the in me. Heh!

     Submission date: 11 August 2006
     Reply date: 31 August 2006

Books received:

Thanks to the Adroitly Placed Award, I am now the manic fan of the following books:

• Déjà Vu Diner by Leonard Gontarek. Oooooh and aaaaah. Poetry samples can be found at Unpleasant Event Schedule. To read his poetry is to believe it.

• lucky wreck by Ada Limon. First came across this poet in Tarpaulin Sky with her mind-blowing poem, First Lunch With Relative Stranger Mister You, which also happens to be the opening poem in the book.

TPM submissions streaming in

Yikes. Managed to taper off the subs from 112 to 30+ last night. This morning, seven hours later, it's back to 71. Have never handled these many submissions in the whole time I guest edited for Niederngasse. It's quite exciting though. The open slots for poetry are only 12-15. It's only the third day of TPM's reading period and I've already got all slots filled. I'll be in for some very tough choices.

30:30 update:

Pfew! Have survived for more than a week now. Not writing terribly inspired stuff, but am just thankful that I'm writing again. Can hardly expect more after a two-month hiatus.

     Poems to date —

     1. On Going to the Cinema and Breaking into the Ticket Booth
     2. Rorschach Card #1: Black Ink on White
     3. A Driving Student Goes Round the Traffic Circle
     4. And I Was, In Those Days, Sober
     5. A Driving Instructor's First Water Bottle
     6. Black Ink on White #2
     7. A Driving Student Takes a Blind Corner
     8. The Night Richard's Swivel Chair Broke

Hee. Quite a lot of driving poems... which, of course, leads to —

10th and 11th driving lessons results:

Have been doing it with the old git's son. Yay! I like how he explains things to me slowly and calmly, like a voice-over recording. Sort of understand better the mechanics of taking corners... now if only I can get my poor limbs to act out what I know I must do, I could start driving seriously. It's a sad fact, of course, that I've got the reflexes of a sloth.

He actually said I wasn't as badly off as I said I was. The sadist has scheduled me to take the practical exam end of September. Gaaaaak!

The Frogmore Poetry Prize 2006

OMG. Someone pinch me awake. Just received a congratulations e-mail from The Frogmore Papers editor.

THE FROGMORE POETRY PRIZE 2006

Announcement of the result of the Frogmore Poetry Prize for 2006, sponsored by the Frogmore Foundation and adjudicated by Ros Barber.

The Frogmore Poetry Prize for 2006 is awarded to Arlene Ang of Spinea, Italy for her poem THE 23rd SECRET LOVE POEM. She receives the sum of two hundred guineas and a life subscription to The Frogmore Papers.

The first runner-up is Michael Wyndham of London for his poem KNOW YOUR ENEMY. He receives the sum of seventy-five guineas and a year’s subscription to The Frogmore Papers.

The second runner-up is Angela France of Cheltenham, Gloucestershire for her poem REJECTING GRAVITY. She receives the sum of fifty guineas and a year’s subscription to The Frogmore Papers.

Other poems shortlisted were:

SANDALS — Arlene Ang
HOME COMING — Tom Collingridge
REDEMPTION — Charles Evans
DOCKER'S UMBRELLA — Copeland Smith
AS WELL AS CAN BE EXPECTED — Anne Stewart
COMING TO LIGHT — Gina Wilson
THE DREWSTER — Howard Wright

Ooooooooooooh.

I even got a second poem shortlisted. It's freaky, so freaky that I've just got to do my purple banana dance right here, right now. Wooooooheeeeeeeee!!

A short note to those who sent me their work for TPM

Please don't send it to me personally via e-mail. First, because the hunting season... I mean, the reading period is —erm— still closed. Second, because I don't know how to upload it to The Pedestal database, and have no intention of doing it for anyone — unless you are Bukowski (first name: Charles) and you're too dead to do it yourself. Third, because my Spam Assassin kills off half the e-mail content of people not included in my address book so any submission to that address is trashed directly from the server.

So... please submit to the submissions page. And —erm— read the guidelines first here. I can access poetry only from the website, not in my mailbox. It's how the system works.


That said, I actually finished reading the few stuff left over from the last reading period of The Pedestal yesterday. I really love their submission system. I even cleaned up after myself as I was instructed to do.

9th driving lesson results:
No earth-shattering improvements.

Re-learned how to park behind another car. It wasn't as bad as I feared and even inspired me to do something osé. At the end of the lesson, the instructor told me to park anywhere I want in the three spaces he pointed out to me. I parked — well, zzzzipped was more like it, into the one beside another car just to see if I could do it. I even braked in time — just in front of a granny with a baby stroller. Hah! The fella muttered: Lazzarona. You really had to choose this one, huh? And you almost got that granny, too. Assassina!

However, when I stepped out, I just had to admire my parking. I was perfectly inside the white lines! Incredible, but true. Wheeeeee!

My 10th lesson is scheduled Monday morning. With another instructor — who happens to be the son of the scary old git. He said he wanted to see how I'm doing. Seemed nice and calm. But then so was his dad before he saw me drive.

Magnetic poetry:

Discovered this neat poetry enabler at The Poetry Library... for poets who are stuck on writer's block. Nate, old pal, if you're reading this, this one's for you.

8th driving lesson results

I survived. The driving instructor survived. I was called scatenata (meaning "hog-wild" at WordReference.com) because I drove at breakneck speed around rotaries. The thing is if I hadn't step on the gas, the silly fella would've kept doing it for me. And I hate that. I have my own gas pedal and I'd like to use it now, thank you.

However, it is also true that when I stepped out of the car, I thought I was going to break into diarrhea in the middle of the sidewalk. Talk about major paunch-ache. Hee. Woke up this morning still rather pukey from the experience.

Was also called assassina twice, lazzarona thrice. Both, when I was told to park near an island. For some strange reason, I decided to change into first gear in the meantime, going lah-dee-dah in my mind, and forgot to —erm— use the brake pedal. The driving instructor was rather forgiving about it since, he said, I hadn't driven in quite some time and he actually expected things to be much worse.
I went: OH.

Yesterday's practice concentrated on rotaries, the rules on entering and leaving them. I seem to be getting the hang of it. At least, I don't fumble too long with the signal lights anymore and forget I should be going round the rotary, not through it. I can now flick the signal light on and off, left and right, without blacking out into one of my confusional states. Yay!

9th driving lesson scheduled on Friday. At 8:45 AM.

What the postman brought in:

• A small packet from Michi containing: Jasper Fforde's The Well of Lost Plots and a 1.5" x 1.5" notepad with a timely note saying: "for mini-poems or horrible-instructor curses!"

• A personalized rejection slip from Conduit:

Dear Arlene,
We enjoyed these and "Inventory of Goodbye" came close. Thank you.

     Mailing date: 15 February 2006
     Reply date: 23 August 2006

30:30 update:

Survived Day 2.

Back again in 30:30

On a whim, I kicked myself back into 30:30 this morning. Let's see how long I last this round III.

Am also busy juggling four stories with Valerie — two of which are supposed to be possible entries for the Wild River Review Fake Memoir Contest. It's a riot. I spent a better part of yesterday morning laughing my pants off at the stuff I faked in the memoirs.

Some nice rejections:

Beloit Poetry Journal editor wrote:

We shall not be using your manuscript. Thank you, however, for giving us the opportunity to consider it. Many of us found your work interesting; I was personal fascinated by the formal dimension of "How a Mother Peels Fruit Before the Funeral."

     Mailing date: 8 June 2006
     E-mail reply: 19 August 2006

Smiths Knoll sent an amiable, hand-written rejection:

Dear Arlene —

Sorry: an enjoyable + interesting batch from you, as always. We hope you'll try us again.

     Mailing date: 4 August 2006
     Date received: 18 August 2006

On a lighter note:

Following a link from Matthew Schmeer's blog (under his thoughts on rejecting poems), I found this hilarious place: Professor Roy and the Amazingly Bad Poetry Journal.

I'm rather sorry I missed their contest deadline — with its "no-b.s. actual prize." That would've been quite an award to add to one's curriculum vitae.

Valerie and I are now officially published...

writing buddies. Wheeeee! Our second finished story, Nature Hates a Vacuum is now online at Edifice Wrecked. Wow, but they're quick!! Hope someone gets a kick out of it — we tickled ourselves silly writing the whole stuff... and will be using the Richard character there in another story (with donkey tails).

Thanks to Sharon who introduced me to the 'zine. Discovered it when I followed the link to her terrific flash, Love is the Firmest Foundation (under Ann Walters) in the same issue.

Surfacing from Fish Tycoon:



After two whole days. Some skipped meals. A squeaky stomach. An irritated bladder. Blurry eyesight. Unchecked e-mails. And migraine. To say. Let's not do that again, shall we?