Room invites you to arrest us with your unconventional hardboiled-detective manuscripts, thrill us with your feminist-fatale tales, and inspire us to break some laws with your vignettes of crimes big and small.
But first, we want to know, Can poetry go noir?
Room invites you to arrest us with your unconventional hardboiled-detective manuscripts, thrill us with your feminist-fatale tales, and inspire us to break some laws with your vignettes of crimes big and small.
But first, we want to know, Can poetry go noir?
We asked around and the best answer came from recent Room contest judge, Miranda Pearson. Here’s a poem from her third book, BC Book Prize-nominated Harbour (Oolichan Books, 2009):
Petit Mort
by Miranda PearsonShe eases herself off him,
recovers last night’s clothesthat drape various chairs,
the floor. Her red-painted toes wiggle into high heels,
and—after briefly kissing him—she slips away,
straightening her skirt. Later,the cleaning staff find the body
and it’s the usual grim scenewith the sirens, the stretcher, the
shrouded facewhile high above the hotel: his spirit,
radiant and free, floatsup into the golden air of
another Californian morning.
(Reprinted with permission—thanks Miranda!)
The deadline to submit to Crime (36.3) is January 31, 2013 and the issue will be published in the fall of 2013.
36.3, Crime, Editor Rachel Thompson’s first book of poetry, Galaxy (Anvil Press, 2011), won SFU’s 1st Book competition. She has been a member of Room‘s collective since 2010. Her editorial debut for Room is Mythologies of Loss, issue 36.1, due out in March 2013.
