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Franz Wright and Daniel Ahearn (Ill Lit) and Michael Rozon (Brazzaville, Melvins) on the CD "Readings from Wheeling Motel"

"Readings From Wheeling Motel" is an album that consists of Franz Wright reading his poems coupled with music by Daniel Ahearn and Michael Rozon. I'm linking to one of the releases, "Night Flight Turbulence" in a YouTube video here.

As you'll see, the poem is pretty hard-hitting, but Wright's work melds well with the music and the video in the clip (neither of which are overdone). The bulk of the emphasis still remains on Wright's words, which makes sense, as they can more than carry their own weight.

The album reminds me a lot of "Die on Me," an album of beat poet Gregory Corso that was recorded about a week before his death from cancer. Like Wright's album, it was stark and resonant, but its music was stilted and at times, even a tad embarrassing, sometimes taking away from Corso's (usually fine) work. Wright's album doesn't seem to have that problem at all, so it is strong throughout.

A brief tangent: As far as the Wright clip goes, I was particularly taken by the combination of video and Wright reading in the YouTube clip, as that's still fairly new territory, and one that's being explored all over the web, including on YouTube and in Todd Boss's Motion Poems series. [Here's a Billy Collins poem on YouTube. Here's to hoping Mr. Wright joins Boss's Motionpoem Series.

Tangent over. Back to the album:

In short, if you have a writer on your list, or a spoken word fan, this is an album for them. Get it here: http://www.amazon.com/Readings-From-Wheeling-Motel/dp/B002N8WB2C

Or, you can check out Knopf's page: http://knopf.knopfdoubleday.com/2009/10/22/readings-from-wheeling-motel/

Duotrope's Digest

In case you don't already know, Duotrope's Digest is one of the damn finest websites around for poets and fiction writers. It's an online directory of literary magazines that publish fiction and poetry and it goes into all the details, making your life a lot easier. So you want to find a list of all journals that accept simultaneous submissions and accept electronic submissions? Easy. You want to find who has the fastest response rate? Done.

In short, the website includes all sorts of information about bazillions of different venues, as well as fascinating stats like a magazine/journals average response time, their acceptance rate, and so on. And it's free! It's a wonderful resource, and it's one we use around here at Knockout quite a bit, when we're sending out our own work.

As a matter of fact, I'm sending out work right now. (Lady rejection, here I come!)

Here's the website: http://duotrope.com/

Knockout Closed to Submissions Until #3 is out

Dear Knockout Readers,

We've been getting lots and lots of submission, which is fantastic, but Knockout is a
two-man ship. (Perhaps a dinghy?) Jeremy and I are working away at getting KO #3 to Press, and that will take up all of our efforts for the near future.

For this reason, Knockout will not be considering unsolicited submissions until February this year. Any submissions received during this period will not be read, and we'll delete them. We'll begin taking submissions again on February 1.

Thanks for the submissions and for helping make KO great.

Joe Milford Hosts Knockout Editor Jeremy Halinen

Joe Milford Hosts Jeremy Halinen

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Knockout Co-Editor Jeremy Halinen Interviewed on Joe Milford's Poetry Show!

2009 International Reginald Shepherd Memorial Poetry Prize Results Announced

We're pleased to announce the results of the 2009 International Reginald Shepherd Memorial Poetry Prize. First of all, thank you to everyone who entered--it was an exciting and difficult process to narrow down the field, and we were quite impressed with the quality of the work we received. Thanks are also in order to Carl Phillips, who was gracious enough to judge the contest. In all, there were 53 entries to the 2009 International Reginald Shepherd Memorial Poetry Prize, for a total of 266 poems. Of these, 37 were semifinalists, nine finalists, three runners-up, and three winners.

We've also got exciting news about the 2010 International Reginald Shepherd Memorial Poetry Prize: C. Dale Young will serve as the final judge for the 2010 Prize. Stay tuned for complete contest information; we'll have it online by October at the latest.

Finally, Knockout is re-opening to submissions on September 1st; please feel free to send some work our way!

See below for a complete list of the 2009 prize winners, runners-up, finalists and semi-finalists:

WINNERS (selected by Carl Phillips)

First place winner: Occupation* (Kelly Madigan Erlandson)

Second place winner: Archaic Bronze** (Christian Gullette)

Third place winner: Wood*** (Larry Bradley)

* For her winning poem, Kelly Madigan Erlandson will receive (1) a $300 gift certificate to Powell’s Books, (2) publication in the fourth issue of Knockout Literary Magazine, due out in 2010, and (3) five copies of the issue. All entrants will receive a copy of the issue. Please notify Knockout (via an email to knockoutrsprize@gmail.com) of any postal address changes to ensure you receive your copy.

** For his winning poem, Christian Gullette will receive (1) a $50 gift certificate to Powell’s Books, (2) publication in the fourth issue of Knockout, and (3) two copies of the issue.

*** For his winning poem, Larry Bradley will receive (1) a $25 gift certificate to Powell’s Books, (2) publication in the fourth issue of Knockout, and (3) two copies of the issue.

RUNNERS-UP (selected by Carl Phillips)

First runner-up: Modern Ripple**** (Rickey Laurentiis)

Second runner-up: August, near Arles**** (Richard Foerster)

Third runner-up: Faggot**** (Rickey Laurentiis)

FINALISTS (in alphabetical order by poem title, selected by Knockout’s editors)

Fourteen (Lauren K. Alleyne)

He Calls Her Etsy (Karen Schubert)

Mirror God (Rickey Laurentiis)

Mother Loved to Joke (Joe Eldridge)

Muster (Kelly Madigan Erlandson)

The Reproduction of Desire (Julie R. Enszer)

Still Birth, September 22 (Karsten Piper)

There’s Always One on the Driveway, Featherless, (Diane Seuss)

Touch (L. Lamar Wilson)

SEMIFINALISTS (in alphabetical order by poem title, selected by Knockout’s editors)

Temp Work (Emily Van Kley)

Argo Navis (Jory Michelson)

Ars Poetica: Nov. 7, 2008 (L. Lamar Wilson)

Being Young (Kelly Madigan Erlandson)

Biting on Ginger (Chip Livingston)

The Café by Foujita (Christian Gullette)

Chip & Nico (Chip Livingston)

Cutlery Tale (P. Hurshell)

Daphne (Richard Foerster)

Dear Batman (Christian Gullette)

The Face of It: A Meditation on an HIV/AIDS Poster on the A-train (Lauren K. Alleyne)

The Gift of Flight (Chip Livingston)

Going Through Life Wearing a Bathing Suit and Helmet (Amy McLennan)

He Looks at Clouds (Joe Eldridge)

How It Touches Us (Lauren K. Alleyne)

Hunting Morels (Christopher Hennessy)

Impersonal Paragraph (J. Marcus Weekley)

Invocation (Binh Nguyen)

Love with the Beer Brewer (Ching-In Chen)

—Me Tangere**** (Rickey Laurentiis)

Mnemonic Device (Binh Nguyen)

Monument Avenue (Jeffery Berg)

One Explanation (Julie R. Enszer)

Otro Banda, The Other Side (Christian Gullette)

A Prayer for the Phlebotomist (L. Lamar Wilson)

Small Traffic (Emily Van Kley)

Surrender (Christopher Hennessy)

Tarry (L. Lamar Wilson)

“The Village Advocate” by an unknown Dutch Master, c. 1600 (Robert Kramer)

That the Body Wants (Lauren K. Alleyne)

To My Father’s Blue Tuxedo (Christopher Hennessy)

Unburdened (Christopher Phelps)

Vestiges [excerpt] (Phillip Brian Williams)

What I should Have Told the Homeless Man

in Cleveland Who Mistook Me for Mary’s Son (L. Lamar Wilson)

Where Ocean Meets Sky (Derrick Austin)

The Window (Suzanne Bottelli)

The Wrestler (Christian Gullette)

**** Knockout has offered to publish this poem in its fourth issue.

2010 International Reginald Shepherd Memorial Poetry Prize

Call for Submissions [coming soon]

Knockout Literary Magazine’s newest poetry contest, the International Reginald Shepherd Memorial Poetry Prize, aims to honor the memory and work of poet Reginald Shepherd, who left us on September 10, 2008. For more information on Reginald Shepherd’s life and work, visit his blog: reginaldshepherd.blogspot.com.

Carl Phillips was the final judge for the 2009 Prize. The complete entry guidelines for the 2010 Prize will be posted online at knockoutlit.org/rsprize.htm no later than October 2009. C. Dale Young will serve as the final judge for the 2010 Prize.

The 2009 International Reginald Shepherd Memorial Poetry Prize

Don't forget that the deadline for the 2009 International Reginald Shepherd Memorial Poetry Prize is coming up! Entries are due by August 1st! Get more information and enter here.