Fall 2021 Atlanta Review Team

Hello World!

The Atlanta Review is in the process of re-vamping our social media so that we can connect more with you all. The people behind our social media are none other than Master’s students in the Global Media and Cultures program (GMC) at Georgia Tech taking a class by the name of—you guessed it—The Atlanta Review. Basically, the class is designed to give students hands-on editorial experience in running and maintaining the Atlanta Review (AR). Students learn to make editorial choices across a number of media platforms, from choosing poems to publish for our print issues, to maintaining social media like Instagram and Facebook, to managing subscriber and contributor lists, updating and improving the AR website, and overall contributing to the long-term indexing project of back issues.

Here are the bios of the graduate students in the Fall 2021 AR Class!

Meg Carver is currently working on her masters degree in Global Media and Cultures with a focus in French. She completed her undergraduate degree at Georgia Tech as well with a major in Literature, Media, and Communication and a minor in French. She enjoys video games, art, and spending time with her family. Her greatest love is her dog Bonnie.

Mackenzie Dumaresque is originally from East Coast Canada but has lived in multiple American states. She is a GMC student completing a concentration in French. She completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Alabama in International Studies with a double major in French. In her future, Mackenzie hopes to work for a non-profit or NGO and she is so excited to see what opportunities arise in the future.

Eboni Goar is an Atlanta native majoring in GMC with a Japanese language concentration. She completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Georgia (go dawgs!) in Asian Languages and Literature. When she is not in class, she can be found at events with Georgia Tech’s Japanese Student Association, hanging out with friends at restaurants in Atlanta/Athens or at home doing some online shopping.

Rebecca Hammond obtained a B.S in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering with a minor in Spanish from Georgia Tech. Through her internship experiences working in beauty and personal care for Unilever, Rebecca has gained an understanding of inclusive product development and consumer communication. She enjoys listening to music and cooking in her free time.

Elle Kostka is getting her Master’s in GMC at Georgia Tech, researching German Corporate Social Responsibility. She received her BA in German and BA in Comparative Literature from UGA, particularly enjoying German Romantic Literature. She continues to enjoy Ballroom dancing, both socially and on the Georgia Tech competition team.

Peruse Past Issues

–from the NYPL Digital Collections

We’ve been busy uploading sample poems from past issues so that you can see all the great poems that we’ve published down through the years.

The most recent past issues include Poetry 2014, Pakistan, and Poetry 2015, and you can find between 8-10 poem .pdfs per issue.  This project (like the Index Project) is time-consuming and slow-going, so be sure to check back periodically to see what “new” past issues we have available.

Hope you’re having a great summer!

Summer Hiatus

–from NYPL Digital Collections

Summer is a good time to catch up on all the great poetry, including contest entries, that we’ve received from you (but haven’t had a chance to get through yet!).

We will be closing  shop on June 1st, so make sure you get your (online) submissions in before the deadline!

(But as always, you can mail your subs any time of the year as long as you send an SASE.)

 

Fall Contest 2021 Open!

From NYPL Digital Collections

It’s February, so you know what that means:  we’re throwing open the doors on our annual International Poetry Contest!  As with last year, contest submissions are $15 for up to 5 poems per entry.  Enter as many times as you want.

One Grand Prize winner will receive $1000 and publication, and all Finalists will be published as well.  Thirty Merit Award winners will receive a copy of the Fall issue.

You can read all the details here on our Submittable site.

We look forward to your poems!  Happy submitting!

Submissions Notice

When we shifted our preferred submission mechanism to Submittable, we received some emails expressing concern about that decision. We have never used the system to “make a profit”–charging no more than we absolutely have to in order to pay for the platform. We understand that some people find the system impersonal, and we still strive to make our interactions with every one of our poets as humane and attentive as possible.

We also made the decision to shift our editorial processes to blind review–to further support our long-standing mission statement to “publish poems, not poets.” As poets ourselves, we are always committed to making the process as fair as it can be. We only accept a tiny percentage of the submissions we receive, so each year we find ourselves rejecting many excellent poems. We often agonize over our choices.

Despite our primary shift to online submissions, we have continued to accept regular mail submissions in an attempt to be as inclusive as possible. Each year we have some people, like those who are incarcerated, who have no other means of sending us work.

And then came the pandemic.

Currently, we have no access to any submissions received by mail since early March. When the university shut down, we could no longer get mail. All the mail is being held in a central site. If you are one of the poets who has submitted work to us by regular mail, we can only promise to read them whenever it is safely possible to do so. Since we have no way of knowing who you are, we hope this message finds you.

In the meantime, because we have the online platform, we are able to continue to read submissions online. We are also able to do other editorial and design work remotely. Hopefully we will all stay safe and well and be able to continue to bring you excellent poetry in these difficult times.

Please take care of yourselves!

Karen, JC, and the rest of the editorial staff

Download Complete Issues

Like basic foods, poetry sustains us through the most difficult times. So, here at Atlanta Review we are providing what sustenance we can: free poetry.

We are now offering you an opportunity to download the Spring/ Summer 2018 South African Women Poets issue!

And in case you missed downloading the Spring/Summer 2020 issue, focusing on Cornwall and Wales, you can get that here as well.

South African Women Poets

Cornwall & Wales

2020 Contest Opens on February 1st!

Got your poems picked out for our annual contest?  Of course you have!

Get ready for your chance to win the grand prize of $1000 and publication in Atlanta Review!  The contest opens tomorrow, and we are so excited to read what you send us!

Deets:

Our contest runs from Feb. 1st to May 1st.  Submission fee is $15/5 poems.  Enter as many times as you want, provided you pay the submission fee each time.

This could be your year for fame and fortune!

submit

Congrats to Our Pushcart Nominees!

Image courtesy of http://pushcartprize.com

We’re so excited to nominated six poets for a Pushcart Prize.  (The Pushcart honors the best writing in small presses.)  Our nominations (in no particular order) are:

        • “Ten Love Stories” by A. Molotkov
        • “Mexican Tongue” by JD Amick
        • “Back Among My Own” by Wendy Drexler
        • “Our First Time Making Love After the Funeral”  by Shannon Nakai
        • “I’m Happy to Drive You All the Way Home” by Caroline Goodwin
        • “She Zuo Bin’s Rite of Spring” by Mary Spalding

Congratulations to all of you!  Thank you for sharing your work with us (and the world!)  And very best luck to each of you!

2019 International Poetry Contest Winner Announced!

Photo credit: Ellie Honl

We are so excited to share that this year’s winner our annual International Poetry Contest is Kurt Luchs, for his poem “Suzie.”

This year’s judge was Dan Vera.

Kurt wins the $1000 prize, and his poem, along with the wonderful poems by the other Finalists, will appear in the fall issue.  Congratulations to Kurt and to all of the Finalists!  You make Atlanta Review awesome!

Kurt Luchs has poems published or forthcoming in Into the Void, Right Hand Pointing, and The Sun Magazine. He won the 2017 Bermuda Triangle Poetry Prize, and was the First Runner-Up for the 2019 Fischer Poetry Prize. He has written humor for the New Yorker, the Onion, and McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, as well as writing comedy for television and radio. His books include a humor collection, It’s Funny Until Someone Loses an Eye (Then It’s Really Funny) (2017 Sagging Meniscus Press), and a poetry chapbook, One of These Things Is Not Like the Other (2019 Finishing Line Press). More of his work, both poetry and humor, is at kurtluchs.com. He lives and works in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where he has no outstanding warrants.

The Finalists:

      • “Mexican Tongue,” JD Amick
      • “[Letter of Love] to Ojīchan,” Aozora Brockman
      • “Self Portrait with Rubble,” Sylvia Foley
      • “A pledge to the dead requires no proof,” Jennifer L. Hollis
      • “Corpse,” Dana Jaye
      • “Meditation on a Trash Fire in My Backyard,” Robert J. Keeler
      • “Quantum Heart,” Kathleen Kirk
      • “Waiting for Mother’s Geraniums,” Pingmei Lan
      • “One Intimate Morning,” Belle Ling
      • “Nighttime in Jericho,” Jo-Ann Mort
      • “Stones without People and the Art of the Mulberry,” Adele Ne Jame
      • “Consumption of a Black Hole and Sweat Bees,” John Nieves
      • “Thin Places,” Edward Nudelman
      • “Thought Experiment,” Edward Nudelman
      • “Apples, Crabapples,” David Rock
      • “Sometimes, Briefly,” Kelly Rowe
      • “Unscrolling,” Joan Roberta Ryan
      • “Spring Freeze,” Joan Roberta Ryan
      • “Dead Woman’s Hollow Road,” Nicole Santalucia
      • “What White Lies Beneath,” Heidi Seaborn
      • “Prelude to a Resurrection,” d.r. shipp
      • “She Zuo Bin’s Rite of Spring,” Mary Spalding
      • “Where We Call to Nest,” Felicia Zamora
      • “Turbulence: Night Flight to Cairo,” Kristin Zimet

Congratulations again!