On March 1st, Seven Kitchens Press will begin accepting submissions for the Robin Becker Chapbook Prize, a competition for for an original, unpublished poetry manuscript in English by a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered or Queer writer. For official guidelines visit http://sevenkitchenspress.wordpress.com/series-guidelines/guidelines-the-robin-becker-chapbook-prize/

(like we didn't know that already): "…how I love your legs! But how I love my own, too!, & my good drugs!, & my fool heart!"

Lovely art by Jim Behrle! Here's a list of responses to VIDA's The Count 2010, however direct or indirect they may be. The dialogue has been exciting! * Eileen Myles on Being Female * Katha Pollitt wants more women editors * Patricia Cohen at The New York Times * Ruth Franklin at The New Republic * Annie Finch on how to publish women writers * Lidia Yuknavitch writes About a Boob * Bitch Magazine * Poetry Foundation * Stephen Elliott at The Rumpus * Meghan O'Rourke at Slate * DoubleX at Slate * Jezebel * Beyond the Margins * Jim Behrle at The Hairpin * Daniel D. Pritchard's Letter to the Times Literary Supplement * Jim Behrle at AMERICAN POETRY DOT BIZ * Graywolf responds

Has poems up over at Switchback friend Christine Kanownik's Augury Books: http://augurybooks.com/2011/02/17/3-12-by-simone-muench/

BLESS YOU, EILEEN MYLES, for the below, and BLESS YOU, CAROL GUESS, for sending it our way... Eileen Myles on Being Female over at The Awl: "Interestingly the poetry world is getting celebrated for its VIDA showing of nearly equal gender parity in reviewing etc. The problem there though is that the majority of the poets writing are female. It’s true. That’s who takes workshops, that’s who gets MFAs, you can easily get some numbers there and frankly in the poetry scene the women are the ones who are generally doing the most exciting work. Why? Because the female reality is still largely unknown. And language is the thrill that holds the unknown in its vague and shifting ways. That’s writin

Check out Switchback advisory board member Seyburn's poem "What I Disliked about the Pleistocene Era" at Poetry Daily!

Wednesday, February 9th 8:00 p.m. bookthugnation 100 N 3rd St (b/w Berry and Wythe) Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY Featuring: Becca Klaver Jennifer Tamayo Marisa Crawford Matt L. Rohrer Sarah Fran Wisby Lizzy Acker

Switchback Books gets a shout out from Paula Kamen in A (Very Incomplete) Feminist Poetry Syllabus for 2011 at the Ms. Magazine blog. Check it out!

Finishing Line Press announces the publication of Twenty-Two, a chapbook of poems by Sarah Carson A keen observer of the small but significant things around our world and in our own lives, poet Sarah Carson has just had her second chapbook collection of poetry published, this time by Finishing Line Press. Becca Klaver (LA Liminal--Kore Press) says of Twenty-Two: “Sarah Carson pokes fun at the rhetoric of medical surveys, manual labor instructional guides, and employee rules and regulations as a way of saying goodbye to the standardized certainty found in documents that ‘train’ a working-class, female self. ‘I don’t understand the question,’ Carson’s speaker dryly admits; in Twenty-Two, a

"Debunked fables, Santa Ana winds, crossfires, underworlds, beer, self-implication, spectacle, quitting smoking, dreams are poems, Manifest Destiny, superimposition, Southern California Gothic, American Beauty, Arrested Development, down-home midwestern elitism, playing with shards/matches, tropicalia-loves-melancholia, why can’t we all just live in one big house together." Switchback founding editor Becca Klaver talks about publishing her first book and why the world needs poetry in We Who Are Now Published Authors.

Stunning poetic moment of the evening (among, admittedly, several): Jennifer Tamayo, whose debut book is soon forthcoming from Switchback Books. --Shanna Compton at AWP DC! Jennifer Tamayo rocked the Madam's Organ stage at the Switchback / Coconut / horse less reading, bringing everyone to laughter and tears, and Liz Hildreth does an amazing job of explaining why [Red Missed Aches] -- available in a few weeks! -- is so fantastic, over at her The Effect of Small Animals blog: Reading this manuscript really is so similar to watching and listening to someone learn a language. It’s fascinating and thrilling and unnerving and extremely irritating. You really want to get in there and fix things, c