Pigs and Poems

Below is a guest posting by the American poet James P. Lenfestey. He knows a lot about pigs, and a lot about poetry. I'd go so far as to say, he taught me everything I know about stealing pigs. Sadly, he only taught me it after I'd stolen them...

"Frankly, Julian -- that was an unconvincing pignapping -- an activity with a long and honorable list of common practices in my part of the world.  Best techniques, which you amateurishly missed: under cover of NIGHT, you dolt!  Then- cover the eyes!  Throw a sack over the entire body.  While they gently sleep, you fool!  The next step frankly may be beyond you -- no reflection on the fairly slight, if energetic, frame revealed in the video.  But you gotta PICK THAT SUCKER UP!  Perhaps your Jeeves is beefy."

Yep, Jim is a tough critic. But a good poet and editor. And I know some of you write poems - don't deny it! So I thought I'd post his invitation to submit work to an anthology he's editing. But before I do, one last word of warning from Jim:

"...Make clear to all the sausage versifiers out there that I demand and accept only very high quality verse -- no manure, this is a serious enterprise which will be turned into a serious book to be purchased with real money by serious people interested in the soul and story and the smile, as well as the body, of the pig.  And I am a vicious editor, a veritable feral boar, biting fearlessly.  Some of the best poets alive, and several dead, are already feeding at the trough.  PAYMENT IS IN PRAISE (and maybe a copy of the book)."

So here's the official invite. Pass it on to any quality pig poets of your acquaintance...

Soo-eee! -- Call for pig poems for anthology

Hey.  Got any poems about pigs?  I'm working this month on an anthology, SOME PIG, to be published in early 2009 by Red Dragonfly Press. 

Right now the anthology contains poems by Galway Kinnell, Philip Levine, Ruth Schwartz, David Lee, Carol Bly, Bill Holm, Martin Espada, Robert Hedin, Scott King, Jim Lenfestey.

If you have 1-3 poems you think appropriate, send to me asap.  Should any be accepted, a seriously selective process, you will receive one copy of the book as payment, and be damn happy about it,  as we do this for love -- of pigs, mankind's true friend, who take us lightly, feed us copiously, and nourish our sense of justice and its opposite.  Your other good works will of course be credited in brief bios.

Jim Lenfestey, Editor
SOME PIG, Red Dragonfly Press
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James P. Lenfestey
TURNING 40 PRODUCTIONS
1833 Girard Ave. So.
Minneapolis, MN 55403
cell: 612-730-7435
www.coyotepoet.com