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Poetry

The "Six Centuries" American History Research Project

POSTMARK DEADLINE: JULY 5, 2008

From 2008 to 2010, Sensations Magazine begins an ambitious six-issue, three-year project, reconstructing America and American history from six centuries in contemporary poetry, contemporary fiction, and research. This journey into imagination will bring new and exciting writing challenges to Sensations Magazine poets, and add to their diversity of written works. We encourage each of you to rise to this challenge.

Each year, regardless of your level of paid membership, you will be allowed to submit up to six poems, which attempt to put the reader in America during six specific time periods.

Due to space limitations in the upcoming issues, and reading time limitations by our volunteer staff, only up to 100 poets will be permitted to submit material, and any submissions in excess of that will be returned. Also, only those poets who submit to at least two of the six "American Century" issues will be permitted to submit material to our final "general theme" issue: Issue 49, to be released in 2011.

The time periods covered during 2008 are as follows:

The Eight Poems You May Send for 2008

	One poem on America, years 1501-1525
	One poem on America, years 1526-1550
	One poem on America, years 1551-1575
	One poem on America, years 1576-1600
	One poem on America, years 1601-1625
	One poem on America, years 1626-1650
	One poem on America, years 1651-1675
	One poem on America, years 1676-1700

Tips for Writers

	Stay specific to topic. Looking for well-researched subject matter, and excellence in craft, voice, and approach.
	Leave out the profanity, unless vital to topic.
	You are submitting poetry to one of the top independent literary magazines in America. Make it sensational.

About the Poems

	Poems must be previously unpublished in any literary magazine, but may be previously published in a personal chapbook with a print run under 500 copies. Do not send originals.
	Poems written in a language other than English must be typewritten with all appropriate accents included, and an English translation must be included.

	Do your research, and do it properly - we will be examining and accepting poems with a strong emphasis on the accuracy of historic details
	Length of poems: we recommend that the majority of your packet be poems of 50 lines or less, counting line breaks as lines. At least one poem may be of unlimited line length.

Types of poems: among your eight poems, please make one of them in form. Some examples of "form" poems include acrostic, haiku, pantoum, sestina, sonnet, and villanelle.

	Focus of poems: person, place, historic event, location, mood of time period, issues of time period, etc.
	Bonus points: we'd like to capture the "unwritten histories" of these time periods: the experiences of women, children, slaves, gays and lesbians, Native Americans, etc.--especially if they are well-researched and well-constructed.

Research Ideas

(NOTE: SKIP DOWN FOR SUBMISSION AND PACKAGE PREPARATION REQUIREMENTS)

So what happened in the pre-United States days of the sixteenth century?

One of the best overviews of 16th century and 17th America I've found are two book by Joy Hakim: The First Americans and Making Thirteen Colonies.

Or here's a start: a chronology of the years 1513-1587. All these dates below are from "The Explorers of America and the New World: 985-1586 A.D.," assembled by David Messineo and published in Sensations Magazine Issue 4, 1990, pp. 32-37. An * below indicates major voyages/planned colonization efforts. We considered this list "thorough" when it was assembled in 1990; additional discoveries since then may have altered some of the details below.

What was it like to be a man, woman, or child on one of these voyages? To be the first from Europe to see something unfamiliar, like an alligator? What if you were one of the natives? Get the details right: if you are describing a native tribe in poetic detail, make sure you have the details historically accurate for that tribe. (There were several in Florida at that time, for instance, with different kinds of housing, attire, and customs.) The attire of a French soldier in 1513 vs. 1586 would have been different. The more you can do to bring the moment alive in a realistic, historically accurate, and interesting way/angle, the greater your odds of being accepted for publication.

Plug any of the explorers, cities/regions, or native tribes into an Internet search engine as a start to your journey:

	1513 - Juan Ponce de Leon lands in Florida on April 2, 1513, seeks the Fountain of Youth (at age 39)
	1516 - Diego Miruelo, Portuguese, "driven to coast of Florida by stress of weather, where he obtained small quantity of silver and gold from the natives," then returns to Santo Domingo
	1517 - From Feb 8 to March, Francisco Hernando de Soto, Spanish, explores the Yucatan, Florida, and the Florida Keys with 110 explorers
	End of 1518 - Anton de Alaminos and Alonso Alvares de Pineda, Spanish, are first to sail up Mississippi River, count 40 Native villages, stay 40 days
	1521 - Juan Ponce de Leon, from Feb 15 to July, takes second voyage to Florida, with 200 explorers, and is killed by natives
	1521 - Francisco Gordillo, Portuguese, travels coast of north Florida, takes 70 natives as slaves
	1524 - From Jan 14 to July 8, Girolamo da Verrazano, Italian, sails from France, follows coast from Florida to Nova Scotia, discovers Hudson River
	1524 - Estevao Gomez, Portuguese, travels from Sept 1524 to Aug 21, 1525, follows coast from Cape Breton to Rhode Island
	* 1525-1526 - Luis Vasquez de Ayllon and Licenciendo Matienzo, Portuguese, with over 500 men, women, and children, anchors at mouth of Savannah River, now part of S. Carolina. They take natives as slaves. One ship is lost, and 150 survivors return to Santo Domingo. The natives taken as slaves to Santo Domingo refuse food and die.
	* 1527 - Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon and Diego Miruelo, Portugese, take 3 large vessels to village of Chicorea in S. Carolina. 200 men permitted to go ashore to visit village. They're entertained for 3 days, then killed.
	* 1527 - Panfilo de Narvaez, Spanish, voyage 1, 5 ships, containing 600 men, 10 women, and 5 padres. Travels to Hispaniola, loses 1 ship near Trinidad. 140 desert, 50 on lost ship = 425 remaining.
	* 1528 - On April 15, 1528, Panfilo de Narvaez, with 4 ships, lands in Tampa Bay with 300 men and 125 more who remain on ships. Plants Spanish flag on soil. One ship sinks, others return to Mexico.
	* 1528 - August 4-September 20, first Western European attempt to colonize on present-day U.S. soil. Colony of 200, formed by Panfilo de Narvaez, at Apalachiola Bay, Florida (near Sanibel Island)
	* Sept 22, 1528 - Narvaez group tried to abandon colony, die in storm. 195 die, 5 survive. The Cabeza de Vaca story begins for the five survivors: walking through the American wilderness, from Florida to Mexico City, over the course of eight years.
	1534-1536 - Starting April 20, 1534, Jacques Cartier, French, takes three trips to explore the St. Lawrence River, with 122 explorers
	1536 - April to October - Richard Hore, English, conducts tourist cruise to Newfoundland that ends in cannibalism
	1538 - Juan de Anasco - takes two voyages to coast American shores for Hernando de Soto landing site
	* 1539 - May 18-25, 1539 - Hernando de Soto arrives in area no E. Fort Myers, Florida, with 17 ships, including 12 priests and 558 men, sets up colony
	* 1539-1542 - From July 1539 to May 12, 1542, de Soto journeys through the present-day central U.S., exploring the Mississippi River in 1541, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and more
	1540-1543 - Each summer, Diego Moldonado and Gomez Arias search for de Soto; in 1543, they learn 311 Spaniards returned to Mexico and de Soto perished inland
	* 1540-1542 - Francisco Vasquez de Coronado leaves Mexico with 300 soldiers and 1500 native guides and camp followers, and explores regions of Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas
	1542 - From June 27, 1542 to Jan 3, 1543, Joao Rodrigues Cabrilho and Bartolome Ferrer, Portuguese, sail from Mexico up California coast, become first western Europeans to see San Diego Bay on Sept 27, 1542
	1549 - Luis Cancer de Barbastro, Spanish, takes voyage with three priests to convert the natives; all in voyaging party are killed
	1556 - Andre Thevet, French, seagoing monk returns from Florida to Europe
	1558 - Luis de Velasco hits a hurricane before landing near Pensacola, Florida, returns home
	* 1559-1561 - Luis de Velasco, Angel de Villafane, and Gonzalo de Gayon land in what is now South Carolina, found first Santa Elena settlement, which fails
	* 1562 - From Feb 8 to June/July, Jean Ribaut and Rene de Laudonniere, French, land in Florida, erect six foot French settlement column brought on ship, sail to create Charlesfort settlement on Parris Island, return to France. Of 150 explorers, 30 remain at Charlesfort settlement
	* 1564-1565 - Rene de Laudonniere, Michel LeVasseur, Jean Lucas, and Pierre Marchant, French, lead relief voyage to Charlesfort to find it destroyed; create Fort Caroline, Florida settlement with 300 men and "some women" - this is the first major French settlement in Florida, a region that the Spanish are calling "New Spain"
	1564 - May 24 to July 7 - Hernando de Manrique de Rojas and Gonzalo Gayon, Spanish, with 25 men, burn Charlesfort, and take the six-foot French settlement column to Havana, Cuba
	* 1565 - In May, Jean Ribaut, with Nicolas le Challeux on board, take seven ships as a relief fleet to Fort Caroline, Florida, with 600 men, women, and children
	1564-1566 - John Hawkins, English, with some English visitors, are just passing through, and stop at Fort Caroline in August 1565
	1565 - From June 29 to September, Pedro Menendez de Aviles, Spanish, takes 15 ships and 2,600 men to decimate any French desire to claim New Spain. They destroy Fort Caroline, and return to Cuba - but first, in 1566, decide to create a Spanish settlement to deter further French incursions: a settlement named St. Augustine.
	1565 - Nicolas le Challeux and a few Fort Caroline survivors fashion a boat and, in one of the most remarkable voyages in maritime history, sail from Florida and make it back to France alive
	1567-1568 - From August 2 to the following summer, Dominique de Gourgues, French, with 180 men, goes to Florida to avenge the Fort Caroline deaths
	* 1577-1580 - From Dec 13, 1577 to Sept 26, 1580, Sir Francis Drake, English, sails the world and lands in what is now California, meets natives, stays five weeks (June 17 to July 23, 1579), accompanied by 150 men and 14 boys
	1584 - From April 27 to Sept 15, Sir Walter Raleigh, Philip Amada, and Arthur Barlowe, English, take two ships to America to report on soil, climate, & natives; visit natives at Roanoke, bring two of them to England
	* 1585 - From April 9 to September, Sir Richard Grenville and Sir Walter Raleigh, English, set sail with seven ships with 500 explorers, land in July, and set up first Roanoke colony of 108, including English poet Thomas Cavendish
	1585 - John Davis, English, June 7 to August 24, seeks Northwest Passage to China, visits Baffin Island with 42 explorers
	1586-1587 - From May 7, 1586 to October 4, 1587, John Davis has jumping contest, "football game," and wrestling match with Eskimos (some of which may have been in present-day Alaska)
	1586 - Sir Richard Grenville brings more colonists to Roanoke
	1586 - From June 15 to July 20, 1586, Sir Francis Drake sacks Cartagena and Santo Domingo, burns St. Augustine, takes 23 ships to Roanoke, and brings 103 colonists home to England, leaving 15 from his ship at the Roanoke colony. "CROTOA" would be all that would remain of the 100+ 'lost' colonists. Or were they lost? New DNA research, being conducted right now, may answer the question once and for all.
	1587 - 13 Franciscan friars arrive in St. Augustine to convert natives to Christianity. One of them, Father Alonso Gregorio de Escobedo, would write "La Floride," an extent 21,000 line poem on 900 handwritten pages, offering the earliest first-hand account of daily life in Florida, circa 1598 to 1603. Portions of this poem were translated into English verse in Sensations Magazine Issue 5, Summer 1991.

Annual Membership Rates Are Required

	To submit poetry in 2008, you must be a member of The Six Centuries Club of America, starting January 2008. Please go to the "Join" button, then the "Annual Membership Rates" button, and make one selection. The minimum rate is $24 per year in 2008.
	Sensations Magazine does not believe in contributing to the financial problems of the State of New Jersey by accepting grant funding to put out our literary magazine. Taxpayers who appreciate the personal sentiment of the Sensations Magazine Publisher on this matter should subscribe to our publication out of principle.

Prizes - 4 Awards

	First Place Award, "Best Batch" - $100 plus two extra issues
	Second Place Award, "16th Century America" - one additional copy of the issue in which your poem appears
	Second Place Award, "17th Century America" - one additional copy of the issue in which your poem appears
	Third Place and lower - publication in Sensations Magazine, period - no free copies
	Our goal: 20-30 poems published per time period category - quantity accepted can go up or down, dependent upon quality of poetry

Preparing Your Submission Packet

	Send hard copy of poems by mail (no email submissions) - one copy per poem
	Do not put your name or address on any poem
	Put your name, poem title, associated time period of poem, and full contact information (mailing address, email, phone) on a separate sheet of paper
	Make your membership check payable to "The Six Centuries Club"
	Mail your submission packet to P.O. Box 132, Lafayette, NJ 07848-0132 on or before July 5, 2008
	Include 2 self-stick address labels for our use (poems will not be returned, and we don't require extra stamps)
	Check "Update" button, then "Get Publication Status" button, around September 5, 2008, to see if any of your poems have been selected for publication
	Expect arrival of Issue 43 and Issue 44 sometime before October 1, 2008

Other Contest Rules (Our Obligations, and Yours)

	Poems will not be returned, and may NOT be retracted from publication if accepted. Decisions will be provided shortly after the postmark deadline.
	Publisher David Messineo will be the sole judge, and will select the poems for publication. His decisions will be final.
	Winners will be posted on www.sensationsmag.com under the "Update" button ("Get Publication Status") button by September 5, 2008. It is your responsibility to check the website to find out whether or not your poetry was selected for publication.
	2009 submission information will be included with shipment of your magazines - no need to send additional SASEs for information.

Thank you for selecting Sensations Magazine as a preferred market for your work. Please make all of your entries sensational!

(Above) The end of an era - our last mass mailing of submission guidelines gives way to Internet website posting.

**From 2003 Poet's Market - a bit about contests and fees:**

"You notice a promising market for your poetry, but the editor requires a set fee simply to consider your work. You see a contest that interests you, but the sponsors want money from you just to enter. Are you being taken? ... Reading fees don't necessarily signal a suspicious market. In fact, they're becoming increasingly popular as editors struggle with the costs of publishing books and magazines, including the man-hours required to read loads of (often bad) submissions ... Entry fees for contests are less worrisome. Usually these fees are used to establish prizes, pay judges, cover the expenses of running and promoting the contest (including publishing a "prize" issue of a magazine). Other kinds of contests charge entry fees, from Irish dancing competitions to bake-offs at a county fair. Why not poetry contests?"

From the Publisher of Sensations Magazine:

Sensations Magazine has operated for 20 years without one dollar in Federal, state, or local funding. We charge entry fees to avoid grant funding, and to enable us to publish on provocative and controversial topics without fear of censorship (often linked to acceptance of grant funding), and (to be perfectly honest) to reduce the amount of material we need to read. We've said it before, and we'll say it again: we are not the market for you if you are too rigid or cheap to pay fees of any kind in advance.

We are the market for you if you appreciate the fact that such fees help enable our continuance, and are used to ensure we remain in operation to continue to serve you and other writers, now and in the future. We manufacture nice publications - and fully respect the fact that the decision to enter, or not enter, is up to you.

Click "Praise" to read some comments from some who have tried us in the past and were pleased (oh, some 200 or so). We hope you will give us a fair try, and the benefit of the doubt, and look forward to receiving and reviewing your entries.


Sensations Magazine American Literary Magazine Awards Winner Copyright (c) 2000-2008 David Messineo	P.O. Box 132 Lafayette, NJ 07848 E-mail available to full-year subscribers

The Six Centuries Club

HOME OF SENSATIONS MAGAZINE

Poetry

The "Six Centuries" American History Research Project

POSTMARK DEADLINE: JULY 5, 2008

The Eight Poems You May Send for 2008

Tips for Writers

About the Poems

Research Ideas

(NOTE: SKIP DOWN FOR SUBMISSION AND PACKAGE PREPARATION REQUIREMENTS)

Annual Membership Rates Are Required

To submit poetry in 2008, you must be a member of The Six Centuries Club of America, starting January 2008. Please go to the "Join" button, then the "Annual Membership Rates" button, and make one selection. The minimum rate is $24 per year in 2008.

Prizes - 4 Awards

Preparing Your Submission Packet

Other Contest Rules (Our Obligations, and Yours)

(Above) The end of an era - our last mass mailing of submission guidelines gives way to Internet website posting.

From 2003 Poet's Market - a bit about contests and fees:

From the Publisher of Sensations Magazine:

Click "Praise" to read some comments from some who have tried us in the past and were pleased (oh, some 200 or so). We hope you will give us a fair try, and the benefit of the doubt, and look forward to receiving and reviewing your entries.

Sensations Magazine

American Literary Magazine Awards Winner

Copyright (c) 2000-2008 David Messineo

P.O. Box 132Lafayette, NJ 07848 E-mail available to full-year subscribers

**From 2003 Poet's Market - a bit about contests and fees:**

P.O. Box 132
Lafayette, NJ 07848
E-mail available to full-year subscribers