Poetic Muselings

Dear Poets,

to create is to live
to breathe the essence
of what must be shared
to survive our feelings

For two years, I’ve used these lines to introduce “Poetry’s Heartbeat”, my column at Apollo’s Lyre e-zine. I still believe in these lines, a portion of a poem I first published in the Desert Woman Magazine in 2007.

Now I’m using this venue to get the word out that Apollo’s Lyre is on indefinite publishing hiatus. I know some of our readers are waiting for word about poems they’ve submitted. and others are waiting for overdue publication dates. We’ve been scurrying behind-the-scenes, but have been unsuccessful resolving our problem. Below are details.

I’m emailing folks, but with over 400 on the list, it’ll take some time to reach everyone individually. While this door is closing temporarily — Lea shouted that out today — I want to encourage you to continue writing and submitting your work. Please let us know when and where you get published, so we can raise a glass of bubbly with you.

For those who are eagerly waiting your spot on the Poetic Muselings site, we will begin sharing those poems here in January.

Next month I’ll share more about my new project — TaCaMeFi (Take Care of Me First), which I believe will help unclutter our lives and our minds, so we can move forward to do what is most important to us.

The following is the heart of what I want to say to our poets and readers of “Poetry’s Heartbeat” at Apollo’s Lyre. I set this up as an auto-response to all new incoming messages while I work to contact individuals:

We are sad to announce that Apollo’s Lyre is going to continue its publication hiatus indefinitely. Unresolvable problems with the host, Tripod, have made it impossible to access or post to our site. Our publisher, Lea Schizas, has repeatedly contacted them; no one at Tripod has responded to her pleas to at least open the site so we can let our readers know what’s going on.

Efforts to create a new site and format for Apollo’s Lyre are underway, but we cannot in good conscience ask you to wait indefinitely. If you submitted poems and are awaiting word about them, consider this message as our way to wish you success with placing your work elsewhere. If we accepted your poems, and gave you an intended publication date, please accept our deep apologies that we will not be able to showcase them as intended.

We are releasing back to you all poems that have not been published; we would still appreciate you adding a note if you republish a poem that appeared in Apollo’s Lyre, identifying the issue and year you were part of our family. No new poems will be accepted nor will any already sent to us be held as backlog for the future. We hope they all find good homes in the poetry universe.

I would like to send each of you a personal message, thanking you for your support, respect for our ezine, and sharing your beauty with us. The logistics of contacting well over four hundred creative souls makes this too daunting, and I chose to start this way, with a general note, so you could begin sending out your work immediately to other publications.

It’s been my honor to serve as Poetry Editor for the past two-plus years. I’m awed by your talent, courage, and willingness to open up and say what must be said. I wish you all the best in your writing and other creative endeavors. I’d love to hear from you so I can read your poems as they appear elsewhere online or in print.

Thank you for your patience, too. I know this has been very stressful waiting to hear from us. It’s been quite stressful from this end also, as we’ve tried our best to figure out how to move forward. On behalf of Lea and the rest of the Apollo’s Lyre staff, we wish you a terrific holiday season, and a productive new year, full of health, love, and happiness.

Michele

(note: this was edited to remove some strange “links” that worked their way into the post; I have no idea why/how they got here, but hopefully, they are GONE for good now.)