Zeus and the Word Voltron!

Voltron

So after a few months delay things are starting to roll again on my latest collection of poetry, Zeus and the Giant Iced Tea. Just a few days ago, in fact, I got an email from the designer who will be working on my book.

She had this crazy idea about putting a Voltron made out of words on the cover ‘with a zeus-like beard and possibly a mexican-like mustache, holding a beverage. Maybe inside a beverage?’ My first thought was ‘that’s pretty damn cool’ followed by ‘but how the hell is all that going to work together?’ So she sent me a sketch and I have to say it looks freakin’ awesome!

I’m really excited about it. Not only because it looks so damn good and hip, but how many other poetry collections have a giant Zeus Robot on the front with a Mexican moustache? Maybe only 2 or 3?

What I’m most excited about is how forthright it is in presenting what I really hope to say about poetry through my work – that it can be fun, hip, modern, interesting, funny, philosophical. Now this should not come as a surprise to anyone who reads, for lack of a better term, ‘underground’ or ‘alternative’ poetry, but to the general reading public poetry is seen generally as old, delicate and inaccessible. Publishers can get stuck too marketing to ‘poetry types’ because they are the ones that buy the books, however if you don’t break beyond that poetry never evolves, and we continue to accept and published the same poetry that still isn’t resonating with the wider world. I think that’s a disservice to the form, because before I started writing it I definitely fell into the category of ‘poetry is not for me, I don’t understand it, and won’t touch it with a ten foot pole except to mock its pretensions and phoniness.’

My point being, people DO judge books by their covers, and this cover promises to be cool and different enough that even non-poetry lovers will pick it up and crack its cover to see what’s inside. And if they read a couple of poems about Mexicans or robots I feel (hope!) they will see that poetry is bad enough to punch them in the teeth and buy them a beer afterwards. And even if they don’t buy the book that’s a success.

Of course, I could just be another deluded poet waiting for the ‘poetry revolution’. But, you know, we all gotta have dreams!

Look for more news about Zeus as it happens...

Zeus delayed!

Yes, he got held up at the airport, and coffee got spilled on his brand new tunic, dammit, and then, well, you know they took issue with him packing his lightning bolts as carry-on. So he’s on the next available flight, which should arrive Spring 2011-ish.

That’s a ways away, sadly, but sometimes books take up to 2 years from acceptance to publication, so I’m still short of that. Its giving me time to work on new stuff, though, which is nice.

But there’s also some good news. A while I ago I mentioned that Zeus got overwhelmingly positive feedback from the reader reviews (Athabasca sends out manuscripts they’re considering to other published authors for their opinions before making a decision) and that I’d share them here if I could. Well, I’ve been given the ok to do so, so from now until the book is out I’ll put up some quotes.

Starting with:

‘McGinnis is funny, witty (he says he’s facetious and thinks he might go to hell for his Gandhi poem(…)I don’t think he will go to hell, at least not for this, and if Gandhi’s there then hell is a hell of alot different than we are given usually to think), but he’s not cynical. He has bite and performs irony right to the end, to a good end, which is to say it’s not all simply irony. The language (..) is crisp and witty and entirely appropriate to the narrative intent, its allegorical or logopoeic purposes.’

Athabasca University Press to publish my new book!

Yes! I have fooled another publishing house into believing my work is ‘visionary’*! Oh frabjuous day! Oh supercalifragilisticexpialidotious!

This is good news indeed! AU Press is a pretty good feather to have under your cap – not only are they one of the few academic presses in the country to publish fiction/poetry, but they are also very well regarded for the quality of their publications. It will be an honour to be part of their list. I’m fairly certain they have good distribution too, so you may even see Zeus and the Giant Iced Tea in a bookstore! Wild.

Actually, I received word sometime last week that the press had decided to publish my second collection of poetry, but knowing the small press, and considering my previous history, I didn’t want to say anything until the papers arrived and I had signed them for fear of jinxing it all. They still need to be signed off by the press, but…well, I couldn’t hold it in any longer.

I have confidence that they will go ahead with my book, though, because of the quality of the assessor reviews. Before accepting a book, AU Press sends it out to two or three experts in the industry (other authors, etc…) and asks for their feedback. Based on that feedback, they either accept the book, or ask the author to respond to the assessments and then make a final decision. In this case, though, they didn’t even ask me to respond…which is something of a literary slam dunk! Both assessments were VERY positive, and it was kind of surreal reading almost full essays on my work - a book that’s not even published yet. Weird, too, because I’ve never even had one essay written about any of my published work. Very cool experience.

Anyway, I’d like to post some of that here, but I’m not sure what I can and cannot share at this point. I’ll be talking with the fine folk at AU Press over the next few weeks to figure out how we go ahead…and give you some updates and maybe a few poems from the collection and what the reviewers thought, if I can.

*Yes, this word was actually used in one of my assessments! I’m going to inflate my head right now to maximize my ego before it gets popped.