Acceptance: The Earth Comes First (TECF)

The Earth Comes First

The Ivory Tower


If you want an alternative to Duotrope's overwhelming lists of places to submit your writing, why not try The Ivory Tower? This free site is managed by John Darling, who also happens to be the editor of TECF.

The Tower has over a thousand entries, and the links take you right to the submission guidelines. I found the poetry section to be superb, with no dead ends, and quality zines. New additions are indicated by a star.

This portal outperformed Duotrope in the sense of providing quick access to approachable editors. In other words, less clicking and hunting was required to get me what I wanted. If you are squeezing submissions into a busy schedule, The Tower may be your best bet. Heck, it’s a fine choice anyway!

Although Darling doesn’t tell us how long he has been building this withering protrusion, I suspect it is quite a while, given its height. This vast construction seems a selfless and generous act, which must require a great deal of time to maintain.

Darling describes himself as a nice guy, and even humbly suggests that his own poetry might not be as good as the reader’s. However, I found one of his poems, “Greenie,” at his new journal, The Earth Comes First, and I thought it was very very fine:

Greenie

The poem originally appeared in 1989, in the Fine Arts section of a magazine called The Reporter, run out of Ventura, California. Adding a bit of historical flair, Darling pasted the page of the magazine directly into TECF. Very cool!

As mentioned, The Earth Comes First is a recent project from this talented and long-standing poet. There’s only one thing I love more than a good journal, and that’s a good journal suffused with an undertone of virtue, which in this case concerns the beauty and health of the planet Earth.

I’m extremely honored that four of my poems are scheduled to appear in TECF. More and more, I am trying to include themes of goodness in my work. Why? Because humanity is currently pushing its global habitat to the point of no return.

On one side is corporate greed, and on the other are people like me who envision a future of moral maturity, where war, consumption, and technology no longer threaten to overwhelm us.

I hate to say it, but sometimes it does seem that black-and-white. If humanity manages to survive for another ten thousand years, not a long time on the scale of things, do you think the game of Monopoly will still provide a good description of the state of economics?

By then, society will have evolved to a higher level or self-destructed. The United States Empire is going to look mighty primitive and stupid to the citizens of the future, if there are any.

Darling is not only one of the good guys, he’s also a very special leader.

May TECF flourish and sow salubrious seeds!


OWL