Kim Bridgford, the founder of the online magazine Mezzo Cammin: A Journal of Formalist Poetry by Women, is the best kind of revolutionary: one whose actions make space for the actions of others, one whose compassion expands with knowledge, one whose own art challenges the status quo with power, grace, and accessibility.

Bridgford brought Mezzo Cammin to life in 2006, when I was a formalist poet looking for places to publish my work. At that time, believe it or not, many poets were suspicious of online publication; print was what mattered. Today, many poets realize that online publication means their poems have a wider audience, and some of the most admired literary journals publish only online.

When I first submitted work to Mezzo Cammin, Kim took the time to make revision suggestions, and later published my work in issues that came out in 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2015, and now, in the current Winter 2017 issue. Those poems cover subjects from domestic violence to addiction to poverty to the stigma of disease. As an editor, Bridgford has been open to all subjects, no matter how “unpoetic” those subjects may seem to others. The world needs poetry written by women: to make our experiences and our visions accessible to others, to give young women poets hope, to help keep women’s voices alive.

In addition to publishing new work by contemporary women poets working in form, Bridgford also initiated the Timeline Project, a database of women poets throughout the world. Articles for this timeline are researched and written by contributors. This important work of preserving women’s history continues — check out the Timeline if you’d like to write an article about a particular woman poet.

Reblog from Sonya Huber — wise words about how taking artistic risks (including the risk of rejection) is scary, yet safe and necessary. 

You didn’t get the grant that would have affirmed your talent and promise. You don’t have a book to hold in your hands that would make all this flailing on the page real. You have been immersed in …

Source: On Wanting, Shame, and Artistic Ambition

Here in North Florida, we do get frosts and even hard freezes, but the seasonal cycle is really more like spring-summer-fall-spring.

For most of my life, though, I’ve lived in places with real winters: snow flurries, blizzards, ice storms, freezing rain, slush, slush that freezes into lumpy ice, snow-plow piles of old snow coated in layers of urban soot.

A deep winter, like the one New England experienced in 2013 – 2014, creates a deep silence, a deep sorrow. Snow muffles sound. Wild animals perish from starvation and cold. The weather brings on internal reflection. And then, some stunning, unexpected beauty — the blood-red life of a cardinal at the feeder, the chickadees’ energetic squabbles, sharply-angles sunlight striking an ice-coated branch.

I don’t miss winter. But, I remember its power in this poem, Sheepscot Wellspring Cemetery, just published in the enigmatic magazine, Cleaver. Don’t miss their “Ask June” advice column, and all the other great poems and stories in the December issue.