Category Archives: news

The LexPoMo Writing Challenge is over!

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Thank you so much for making this the best Lexington Poetry Month ever! Without everyone’s support, camaraderie, and love, this wouldn’t have been possible.

We’ll have a more detailed post later in the morning with some statistics about the event, but in the mean time, we want to also thank our generous sponsors. Without their support, this wouldn’t have been possible, so please be sure to show them your support and gratitude:
And we’d also like to thank our special funder at FutureCycle Press and The Kentucky Review. You can check them out by clicking the banner at the top of the page.

This Wretched Vessel Release/Reading Tonight

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This Wretched VesselThe Lexington Poetry Month 2014 Writing Challenge led to 114 poets submitting over 1,100 poems on the Accents Publishing Blog. You can sign up for this year’s Writing Challenge by clicking here*, but the featured poets will have a chance to read their work tonight at the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning.

Anyone who has been published in the anthology is welcome to read, and anyone who is interested in Lexington, poetry, or Lexington Poetry Month is encouraged to attend and bring friends, family, and poetry fiends. We will provide light refreshments and snacks. You will provide a fun, supportive atmosphere for our featured poets.

Also, a big shout-out goes to Eric Sutherland for giving Accents such a kind and generous mention during last night’s Holler Poets reading, and to Jude Lally for reading “No Matter What”, the poem that gave us the title of our anthology. We are so gracious to not only have such people in our books, but in our lives as well.

When: Thursday, May 28, 2015 @ 6pm
Where: The Carnegie Center
251 West Second Street
Lexington, KY 40507
(859) 254-4175, ext. 21

*If you are having problems signing up, please email the Blog Administrator by clicking here.

Lexington Poetry Month is Two Weeks Away

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Lexington Poetry Month 2015Lexington Poetry Month was created by Hap Houlihan and Katerina Stoykova-Klemer to get Lexington, Kentucky writing and sharing poetry for the entire month of June.

Since we’ve already signed up 68 poets (at the time of this write-up), many of you already know about Accents Publishing’s LexPoMo Writing Challenge, but if you don’t, it’s a great way to exercise your writing skills in a warm, supportive community.

This Wretched VesselYour goal in the Writing Challenge is to write a poem every day throughout the month of June. Then you build up the courage to submit your poem to the Accents Blog. Putting your work into the public is never easy, so you don’t have to submit everything (although the most honest, raw poems usually get the most comments). But if you submit at least five poems during those thirty days, then one of them will be picked for publication in an anthology from Accents Publishing. We have already published two anthologies, Her Limestone Bones and This Wretched Vessel, all of which were originally submitted to the Accents Blog.

And the LexPoMo Writing Challenge wouldn’t be possible without the support of some amazing sponsors. You can view them all on our sponsors page, as well as our special funders who have purchased a banner that will be shown at the top of the blog throughout the month of June. All of our sponsors are community-minded organizations that we have personally sought out, and if you could visit our Sponsors page and show them some support, we’d really appreciate it.

Sign ups are open until May 31st at 11:59pm, so be sure to sign up (by clicking here) sooner rather than later, and you can also check out everyone else who’s signed up by clicking here.

This Wretched Vessel is Now Available

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This Wretched VesselWe are proud to present our anthology for the Lexington Poetry Month 2014 writing challenge!

This Wretched Vessel  is a 162-page collection of poems written and submitted by a diverse group of poets during the 2014 Lexington Poetry Month, in which participants were challenged to write at least one poem a day. Our favorite poems were selected (by editors Hap Houlihan, Christopher McCurry, and Robin LaMer-Rahija) from those submitted, and the result is an emotional, courageous, and sometimes funny poetry collection featuring the work of 114 authors.

The stunning cover art was created by Theo Edmonds.

What others had to say:

As I write this, it is April, National Poetry Month, and I am thinking about Lexington’s place in National Poetry Month, and its choice to have its poetry month in June, a move that goes against the grain. Accents Publishing, the marvelous publisher of this collection, once again goes against the grain with This Wretched Vessel. Selected by three of Lexington’s fine poets, Hap Houlihan, Robin LaMer Rahija, and Christopher McCurry, this anthology is an exciting and varied gathering of poems written during Lexington Poetry Month by an exciting and varied gathering of poets—a showcase of the diverse, vibrant, new and established voices coming out of (and to) Lexington—reading This Wretched Vessel is a lot like taking a drive on a Kentucky road in the month of June—”night air sticky at our backs, we roam” (Erin Mathew’s “Calluses”); “haunches quivers” (tina andry); “The color of dry earth before a summer rain” (Jen Parks); “Ideal isolation” (Chuck Clenney).

– Julia Johnson

The complete list of poets is below, but you can also find their entries (formatted for the web) by clicking right here.

Authors

yahieisha adams, Mary Allen, tina andry, Bobby Steve Baker, Jenni B. Baker, Eduardo Ballestero, Jennifer Barricklow, Leslie Bartley, Allie Marini Batts, Elizabeth Beck, Gaby Bedetti, Maggie Brewer, Mattie Bruton, Jennifer Burchett, Joan Burke, Elizabeth Burton, Nora Burton, Linda Caldwell, Amy Camuglia, Erin Chandler, Sherry Chandler, David Cole, Deborah Adams Cooper, Sean L Corbin, Chuck Clenney, Naomi Clewett, Roger Conner, Taylor Emily Copeland, bront davis, Andrew Depew, Serena Devi, Bernie Deville, Julian DeVille, Laurel Dixon, Marta Dorton, M J Eaton, hb elam, Kate Fadick, Nettie Farris, Matt Finley, Chloe Forsting, Morghan Fuller, Duke Gatsos, Barry George, Karen George, S.R. Gollihue, Jaria Gordon, Pauletta Hansel, Marvis Lisso Hartman, Matthew Haughton, Pamela Gibbs Hirschler, Kristy Horine, Leigh Anne Hornfeldt, Sue Neufarth Howard, carole johnston, Elizabeth Kilcoyne, Robert S. King, corey kirby, Michelle Knickerbocker, Zlatna Kostova, Jim Lally, Jude Lally, Ann Neuser Lederer, George Ella Lyon, Patrick Maloney, Erin Mathews, Jay McCoy, Christopher McCurry, Chaiya Miller, Samantha Jean Moore, Ryan D. Mosley, J W Mullins, Cheyenne Neckmonster, Joseph Allen Nichols, Carmen Norris, Kristine Nowak, Bronson O’Quinn, Andres Ortiz, Pat Owen, jeremy dae paden, Rayny Palmer, Jen Parks, Catherine Perkins, Melva Sue Priddy, Robin LaMer Rahija, Katie Riley, Jonel Sallee, Douglas Self, Vijay Singh, Savannah Sipple, meadow dawn smith, MC Spam Bot, Matt Spencer, Bianca Spriggs, Jay St. Orts, Tina Parker, Liz Prather, Dennis Preston, Keith Stewart, Travis Stidham, Karah Stokes, Victoria Sullivan, Eric Scott Sutherland, Katerina Stoykova-Klemer, Rudy Thomas, Alexis Tipton, Beatrice Underwood-Sweet, Milena Valkanova, Maggie Wells, Shuntella Whitfield, K. Nicole Wilson, J. Wise, Tyler Worthington

How I Became an Angry Woman is Now Available

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How I Became an Angry WomanAccents is proud to announce our newest chapbook, How I Became an Angry Woman, by Bianca Bargo.

In How I Became an Angry Woman, Bianca Bargo autopsies a doomed love in razor-edged imagery “boiling with lava and venom.” Here we have a man who has “eaten girls’ hearts like valentine candy’ and a woman who has “too many nightmares / of your old lover; / her Fingers, dirty / with knowing you first.” These are volcanic poems that ultimately understand how love—like the truth—is rarely pure and never simple.

—Sarah Freligh

How I Became an Angry Woman

I was born honey-tongued
and eager, a soft thing
looking for legs
to coil around.

Over and over
I opened my mouth
to men in whispers,
kisses, confessions,
prayers to false gods.

I never asked to be this
pale demon with grit teeth.

I just woke up
one morning in her
scorching skin and

blinked against the burn
of new light until I understood
it was my own eyes
full of fire.

Bianca BargoBianca Bargo was born to a loving family in Knox County, Kentucky. She earned her B.A. in English from the University of Kentucky, where she discovered and honed her poetic voice, winning UK’s Farquhar Poetry Award and serving as Managing Editor of Limestone: A Journal of Art and Literature in 2009. From 2010-2014 as she spent her time working in retail and public education and obtaining her MA.Ed. from Eastern Kentucky University, Bianca continued to write and enjoy poetry with the inspiration and support of Lexington’s poetry scene. Her work has been published in Accents Publishing’sBigger Than They Appear: Anthology of Very Short Poems. She currently resides in Lexington, Kentucky with her husband Micah and their pets. She has yet to Figure everything out, but continues to work on it while trusting kindness and curiosity to lead the way.

The Kentucky Poetry Festival

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Kentucky Poetry FestivalToday marks the beginning of the Kentucky Poetry Festival, sponsored by the University of Kentucky’s MFA in Creative Writing. The festival includes a variety of events, including an ekphrastic poetry contest, a poetry slam, and various readings.

You can view the full list of events by clicking here while links to the Facebook Event pages are below.

Deflection Picked as one of National Poetry Month’s Best

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The Washington Independent has picked their April “Examplars”, and among them is Roberta Beary’s Deflection.

Grace Cavalieri (who also wrote a blurb for the book) calls Roberta “the mistress of the short form poem”.  “In Deflection she extends her reach with some of the most searingly truthful work I’ve seen this year.”

Among the other picks for the best of April are Jane Hirschfield’s The Beauty, Parneshia Jones’s Vessel, and John M. Fitzgerald’s Favorite Bedtime Stories.

You can see the list in its entirety by clicking here.

Roberta Beary in the News

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Roberta BearyAside from being the author of our newest chapbook, Deflection, Roberta Beary recently won the Sharpening the Green Pencil Haiku contest with the following haiku:

quiet rain…

a robin slips through

my chemo fog

 

You can find out more information by clicking here.

She was also featured (along with Richard Gilbert) on Timothy Green’s video series Transatlantic Poetry on the Air, which you can see below.

And to check out Deflection, you can read a poem here or pick up a copy at the Accents Store.

Deflection by Roberta Beary

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Accents Publishing is proud to announce Deflection by Roberta Beary.

Deflection“I feel astonished, happy, and lucky to have discovered Deflection.Roberta Beary’s poetry is animated with principles of Haiku, illustrative of the form but reliant on other traditions. Her work shows that a gifted poet can assert all manner of styles within a poem, sharing interests of each to give us a new breed. It’s a bright sunshiny day when we get surprising, evocative, powerful poetry coined from the gold standard of ancients. These poems are vibrant with lived experience and shockingly beautiful with new expression. The lines and poetic forms are prisms from the classical, and lyrical, to distilled Asian thought. This book is essential in furthering the art of poetry.”

—Grace Cavalieri

Deflection is available at the Accents Publishing Store.

Roberta Beary is the haibun editor of Modern Haiku; she tweets her photoku @shortpoemz. Her book The Unworn Necklace was named a William Carlos Williams finalist by the Poetry Society of America in 2008, the first such honor for a book of haiku. A frequent judge of haiku and haibun contests, she travels worldwide to give workshops on the art of the short poem. Her poetry is featured in the reference work A Companion to Poetic Genre (Wiley-Blackwell, 2011) and in the anthology Haiku In English The First Hundred Years (Norton, 2013). www.robertabeary.com.

KY Great Writers, Spring 2015

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KY Great Writers Spring 2015The KY Great Writers Series will be tonight at the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning in Lexington, KY. An open mic will precede the event at 7pm and sign-ups will begin shortly before that.

Joe Survant Joe Survant hails from Owensboro and was the Poet Laureate of Kentucky from 2003-2004. His newest book, The Land We Dreamed: Poems(University Press of Kentucky) came out in February.

 

 

Eric Scott SutherlandEric Scott Sutherland is a hawk watcher, Kentucky creek walker, tree loving Lorax, community and event organizer, the author of two chapbooks and the full-length collection incommunicado (2007). pendulum (Accents Publishing) is his fourth book of poems. He is the creator and host of Holler Poets Series, a monthly celebration of literature and music since 2008. Eric makes his nest in Lexington. Follow Eric and Holler at www.ericscottsutherland.com.

Erin KeaneErin Keane recently released Demolition of the Promised Land, a collection of poetry that has Bruce Springsteen as “guide, ghost, and accidental guru” (source). She has also published Death-Defying Acts and The Gravity Soundtrack. She is also a pop culture writer with published articles all over the place.

 

When: Tuesday, April 14, 2015 @ 7pm
Where: The Carnegie Center
251 W. Second St.
Lexington, KY 40507
(859) 254-4175