Every May, Tab Journal publishes the winners and honorable mentions in the California Coastal Commission’s K-12 Poetry Contest. This year, we feature 19 of the state’s creative kids writing about the California coast, including audio recordings of many of them reading their original work. Let these poems in the Current Issue inspire you!
As part of the judging process, students in poetry at Chapman University read poems by young poets from kindergarten through high school to select the finalists. Annie Frankel, the California Coastal Commission’s Education Coordinator, oversees the final judging and works with the staff of Tab Journal to bring the poems to a wider audience.
Congratulations to the winners and honorable mentions of the 2020 Coastal Poetry Contest!
Poetry students in the Chapman University MFA in Creative Writing will read from their work on Tuesday, May 19, at 7pm (PDT). Because of the global pandemic, this end-of-year celebration reading will be held online and hosted by Jim Blaylock (acting director) David Krausman (graduate programs coordinator).
TAB is housed at Chapman University, and students and alums of the MFA program serve on the staff. It’s difficult not to be able to celebrate their growth and achievements in person this May, so we’re making do with the opportunities we have. We’re incredibly proud of these students individually and together.
We are excited to share the March 2020 issue, featuring work by Nathaniel Dolton-Thornton, Vandana Khanna, Nancy Kuhl, January Pearson, Lois Roma-Deeley, Cecilia Woloch, and Tryphenah Yeboah. We look forward to hearing from readers, and we hope you share Tab Journal with friends.
If you missed the January print issue, you can see the Table of Contents in the Volume 8 (2020) Archives. There, we also share the thinking behind this year’s design, which strives to be inclusive as well as innovative. And if you’d like a copy of the print issue, you can use the Contact form on the website to request one. Unfortunately, because Chapman University is under a stay-at-home order, we are not able to mail it out right away.
TAB vs. Tab Journal
Going forward, we’ll refer to TAB: The Journal of Poetry & Poetics by the informal name Tab Journal. In the past, we’ve used the word “TAB” in all caps to refer to our project, but we realized that e-readers read that as the distinct letters “T-A-B” as if it were an acronym. For greater accessibility, we’ve now adopted Tab Journal as our informal name. For citations and the ISSN, we retain the official name TAB: The Journal of Poetry & Poetics.
Though it’s often difficult now to sustain attention for reading during this global pandemic, here’s what I’ve found useful during this challenging time.
COVID-19 Serious Reading
Last week, The New York Review of Books published a moving account by Leslie Jamison about her experiences with COVID-19 a month after filing for divorce. I’ve taught Jamison’s work before and found this piece especially powerful. For something less personal and differently though provoking, I recommend Ed Yong’s piece “How Will the Coronavirus End?” at The Atlantic. Though I’m trying not to get overwhelmed by the news, I am finding some writing about COVID-19 that sticks with me.
COVID-19 Light Reading
I also want to share a few links to pieces that offer a little levity in the last couple of weeks:
And here are a couple of links to things to watch and listen to:
Tabula Poëtica on YouTube, where you can find video-recordings of our visiting poets; note that some are readings, whereas others are poetry talks on various subjects.
In light of this past month’s horrific news of the global COVID-19 pandemic, the TAB staff extend our heartfelt wishes that writers and readers everywhere are taking care, staying at home, and washing hands. We also extend our condolences to the family of playwright Terrence McNally, who visited Chapman University just over a year ago.
COVID-19 & the next issue
Here in California, our governor issued the stay-at-home order on March 19. Chapman University, where TAB is housed, had switched from in-person to online teaching a week earlier, and university staff who could work from home had already started that transition. You can read the university’s various statements and see the sorts of resources that have been developed by checking the COVID-19 section of the university’s website. We’re glad university leaders are doing what’s urgent and also making sure that our community is supported as much as possible as we adjust to this challenging situation.
This new way of working for TAB came when we were moving from the editorial stage to the production stage for the March issue, which is to be the first online issue at this website. This new platform and our increased efforts to make TAB as accessible as possible mean that the work has slowed. The March issue will appear soon.
TAB & Chapman University’s MFA program at our AWP Bookfair Book in 2019
Free copies of TAB: The Journal of Poetry & Poetics will again be available at our bookfair booth at the Association of Writers & Writing Programs Conference on March 4-7, 2020. We’re at Booth #1543 in the middle of the bookfair hall.
As we head to San Antonio, we’re reading Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem “San Antonio.”
We’re also looking at the Offsite Events so we can get out and see the city. Here are few that feature poets whose work has appeared in TAB.
On Wednesday at 7:00pm at Cos House, you can hear TAB poets Chloe Honum and Alison Benis White in the Tupelo Quarterly event.
On Thursday at 3:00-6:30pm in the Marriott’S Travis Room, TAB poet Allison Joseph is among the readers in Say My Name: Women Writers Readingpalooza.
Also on Thursday at 4:00-7:00pm at Candlelight Coffeehouse, catch TAB poet Denise Duhamel at the Nashville Review/Zone 3/Grist reading.
And on Thursday at 6:00-10:00pm at Smoke BBQ, TAB poet Hadara Bar-Nadav will read in Don’t Mess with Texts, featuring authors from Willow Springs and Florida Review.
In one more on Thursday at 7:00-10:00pm at Blue Star Brewing, TAB contributors Traci Brimhall and Oliver de la Paz will be part of the Baby-Sitters Club, a reading featuring 12 poets with new books sticky with parenthood.
On Friday at 7:00-9:00pm at Cos House, TAB poets Katie Farris and Jesse Lee Kercheval (they both published translation work in TAB) are part of Tupelo Press’s reading.
TAB & Chapman University's MFA program at our AWP Bookfair Book in 2019
TAB at AWP
Stop by Bookfair Booth #1543 at the AWP Conference in San Antonio on March 7-10, 2020. We’ll give you a free copy of the print issue of TAB (we’re bringing copies from the last three years!), and we’re happy to chat about what we’re up to and what we’re looking for.
Ragdale, Lake Forest, Illinois
TAB Editor at Ragdale Residency
TAB Editor Anna Leahy is spending the month of February at Ragdale, which welcomes writers, visual artists, filmmakers, and composers. In addition to Leahy, current residents include Annia Ciezadlo, author of Day of Honey: A Memoir of Food, Love, and War; Richard Pasquarelli, whose visual art draws from research into hoarding and OCD; Oliver Caplan, a composer of contemporary classical music; and more.
Leahy is working on poetry, essays, and research on accessibility and inclusion in poetry under an institutional grant from Chapman University. Much of the recent innovation to make TAB more accessible is a result of this grant.
Residency sessions run either 18 or 25 days, with special themed shorter sessions for collaborative groups. The next application deadline is May 15, 2020.
Guest Curator for Tabula Poetica
We’re excited to announce that TAB poet Genevieve Kaplan is curating the Tabula Poetica reading series for Fall 2020. The series usually brings three poets to the campus of Chapman University for a talk and a reading, and the series concludes with a reading by students in the MFA in Creative Writing program. Kaplan already serves as one of the organizers of the Fourth Sundays reading series at the Claremont Library in California and teaches poetry courses at Chapman University.
Forthcoming Books
Tabula Poetica visiting poet and Chapman University Presidential Fellow Carolyn Forché‘s new poetry book, In the Lateness of the World, is forthcoming in March. Publisher’s Weeklylists this one as one of the spring’s most anticipated.
Tabula Poetica visiting poet and former visiting professor Victoria Chang‘s new poetry book, Obit, is forthcoming in April. This one has a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly.
TAB poet Maggie Smith‘s new book is based on the tweets she wrote in the months following her divorce. It’s due out in May, and it’s already on this year’s lists from Marie Claire,Washington Post, and Parade. One of Smith’s poems appeared in last year’s print issue of TAB.
All three books are available for pre-order now, and TAB is convinced that all these books are going to get a lot of buzz.
In 2011, poet and nonfiction writer Anna Leahy and information designer Claudine Jaenichen started talking about the possibility of the project that launched as TAB: The Journal of Poetry & Poetics with the tabloid-format print issue in January 2013. Leahy serves as TAB Editor, and Jaenichen is TAB’s Creative Director. They work together closely on each volume of TAB and on decisions about the content and the design of both the print and online issues.
Brian Glaser serves as TAB Criticism Editor. He reads both the scholarly essays and creative nonfiction that’s submitted to TAB. Glaser teaches both literature and writing classes at Chapman University. His poetry collection The Sacred Heartwas published by Aldrich Press (part of Kelsay Books) in 2018.
For the first time, we’ve asked MFA alums to serve on the staff. This year, we welcome Liz Harmer, whose novel The Amateurs was a finalist for the Amazon Canada First Novel Award. One of her poems, written during her time at Chapman University, was the runner-up for the Mitchell Prize in Poetry.
Liz Harmer
Alum Laila Shikaki also joins the staff. While TAB doesn’t publish those who are currently or recently directly affiliated with Chapman University, Shikaki’s work appeared in the Current Issue and in Volume 5, since she earned her MFA. Shikaki is from Palenstine and is now earning her PhD at St. John’s University in New York.
Tryphena Yeboah
The current MFA in Creative writing students who are on the staff are Daniel Miess, Tori O’Leary, Jason Thornberry, and Tryphena Yeboah. Thornberry is working on aspects related to accessibility and inclusion under Faculty Opportunity Funding awarded to support the changes in TAB you’re seeing this year. We’re especially excited that Yeboah, who is from Ghana, placed a short story at Narrativeher first semester in the MFA program.
TAB staff are immersed in reading submissions now, and we’d like to see more this month. We have spots left in the very next issue, and your work might be just what we’re looking for. In fact, we’re especially interested in seeing more work from writers of color, work from writers of all genders, and work from writers with disabilities. Please share our this call for submissions with writers you know.
We’re looking for poems, of course, and you can read around in the TAB Archives to see what a wide aesthetic range we publish. Our Criticism Editor is looking for work that ranges from scholarly essay with a works cited to personal essay, as long as it has something to do with poetry. And if you have an interview with a poet or a poetry collaboration with a visual artist, we’d like to consider it.
Please read our submission guidelines before submitting. We’d like to be faced with so much good work in the next few weeks that our final decisions about the next couple of issues are really difficult.
If you’ll be at the AWP Conference in San Antonio, we’d be happy to talk with you in person. Stop by Bookfair Booth #1543 to pick up a free copy of our print issue.
TAB poet Lorene Delany-Ullman and artist Jody Servon are exhibiting “Saved: Objects of the Dead” at the Viewpoint Gallery at the University of California, Irvine, through February 17. This photography-poetry collaboration “Our project documents the lives, deaths and relationships of individuals whose objects are imbued with their emotional and physical senses, then saved by loved ones and friends as an affirmation of their love,” Servon told theLA Times.
Read two of Delany-Ullman’s poems and a review of her book Camouflage for the Neighborhood in Volume 2 of TAB. Her work also appeared in the print issues in 2015 and the Current Issue.
Poems by both Seyburn and Thompson are featured in the Current Issue of TAB and were also featured in our very first issue in 2013. Kaplan’s work has appeared in Volume 4, Volume 5, and the print issue of Volume 6, after which she also began teaching at Chapman University. Her new book (aviary) is forthcoming from Veliz Books.
Exhibit curated by Nancy Kuhl
TAB poet Nancy Kuhl has curated the exhibit “Travel Papers in American Literature” at Yale University’s Beinecke Library, where she oversees the American poetry collection. The exhibit is set to run May 11, 2020, through August 9, 2020.
Kuhl’s work is featured in the Current Issue and the print issue of Volume 1 as well in an online issue in Volume 5.
TAB published work by these poets in the print issue of Volume 1. Joseph’s “Compliance” also appeared in the print issue of Volume 5.
Send us your news…
If you’re a TAB poet with a new or forthcoming book or know of an accomplishment by someone whose work we’ve published, we’d like to hear about it. We also share local poetry event info with the MFA students at Chapman University. You can use the Contact form on the website or email us at poetry@chapman.edu with the subject line “TAB poet news.”
