Prioritization Pressure

I had to get my #PoetryBrain into gear this week because I have 3 deadlines looming. Luna Luna, a New York magazine, has a call for submissions on the theme of disability, mental health, and chronic illness closing on 1st August, so I've got that one tidied up and submitted. Disability Arts Cymru has a deadline for poems responding to paintings in their gallery on the theme of Austerity/Extravagance: which closes 31st July, so my cheque is in the post and my submission is ready to be emailed. Which leaves one more, the Live Canon International Poetry Competition which is not on any theme, and that closes 12th September [edit: not August as initially stated here] so I have prioritised my deadlines so that's the only one still in need of getting into submittable shape.

Luna Luna is a magazine run and edited by volunteers, so there are no payments for poems or articles, but equally there are no fees either. The Disability Arts Cymru competition requires poets to identify as a disabled person; there is a prize of £50 for an English language poem and another £50 for a poem in the Welsh language; the entry fee is £5 for 1 poem or £8 for 2. The Live Canon competition has a prize of £1,000 and there is also a £100 prize for the highest placed entry by a local writer, living working or studying in the London Borough of Greenwich; the entry fees are £6 for a single poem, £15 for three poems and £20 for five poems; 25 shortlisted poems will be published in a 2016 prize anthology.

It can be hard to prioritise correctly when your brain wants to take you off in one particular poetry direction but your calendar is dragging you in the opposite one. Having had a busy 2 months on the poetry and blindness front I was ready for a break from focussing on disabilities, but needs must!

I thank my Civil Service training for my ability to prioritise effectively. If you fail to meet a deadline then you disappear under a mountain of emails from 50 different departments all wanting to know what you think on this, that and the other, wanting an estimated publication date, and the very latest project budget forecasts; you know that Chilcot pamphlet, I'd have had that out years ago! ;)

I still have one minor fly in the ointment needing urgent attention. I have been invited to be on an episode of Brum Radio's monthly show Radio Poets where they will be looking at blindness and have invited me on to the show. I have edited down a poem about colours that I would like to be able to read if the chance arises, but my brain is, as you've probably gathered, not the most porous sponge in the bathtub and it's already looking an ambitious target with only a couple of weeks left until recording — I'll do my best to commit it to memory, and maybe, if I fail, somebody nice would like to read it off a print out for me :)

Right, first I'm going to prioritise another cup of coffee and then start on the memorization :)

#LunaLuna #DisabilityArtsCymru ##LiveCanon #BrumRadio