Featured by Ink

A High-Caliber, Audio Zine

Welcome to Stanza Cannon, the first-of-its-kind, quarterly zine dedicated solely to spoken poetry. The editor operates on the double standard of summa cum laude English majoring and love-it-when-you-hear-it enthusiasm. If it makes you feel, if it makes you think, if it makes you snap, if it makes you involuntarily shout out from or fall off of your bar stool, then favorites await here among pages that actually speak to you.

Interested in having your voice heard (literally)? Head over to the Submissions page to find out where your talent and our interests overlap.

by Ink

Issue Nos. 7 and 8 are live!

The seventh and eighth issues of Stanza Cannon are live, and we are humbled once again! We’ve had a record number of submissions, and our page views keep growing. Listen to all collective contributions as a playlist or select tracks to play one at a time as is your pleasure. We cannot possibly thank enough those talented artists who trusted us with their work. It means the world to us to be able to broadcast your voices.

Reminder: Submissions are open 24/7/365, but we are currently accepting for our Spring 2024 Issue due out mid-March(-ish). And don’t forget the Grab Bag. It’s an excellent way to hear how your poem can be read / is being read by others!

Listen. Be inspired. Submit, and break the sound barrier.

by Ink

Proud Sponsor

At least for the time being, because I(nk) believe(s) poetic expression should not have financial barriers, Stanza Cannon will remain a free-to-listen, free-to-submit literary quarterly. Unfortunately, that also means SC’s coffer depends on the founder’s funds. That means there’s almost no spare money behind this project, which in turn limits what we can do to compensate our contributors. (And we want to remedy this as soon as possible.)

So as a means to increase the visibility of Stanza Cannon and thereby give its contributors more ears and more than a publication credit, the EIC cut a deal to sponsor CIUT 89.5FM’s Howl — an online radio program that is dedicated to poetry and features an open mic which mirrors what Stanza Cannon loves: voices from around the world.

You’re thinking, “But couldn’t you just pay contributors with the sponsorship money”? And, yes, we could, but only for a brief period. But if we grow our audience, maybe we can then offer subscriptions to access old issues (unrestricted access) and keep the current issue free. This would enable us to reach our goal of paying both new and previous contributors while providing free-to-submit, free-to-listen content.

If you’d like to find out more about the sponsorship and how it came about, listen to this episode of HOWL featuring an interview with Ink.

by Ink

Issue No. 6 is live!

As our very first issue with a (faux) guest editor, our second summer issue features ten poems by five poets. We’ve got a playful cautionary tail, we’ve got poetry writing pointers, we’ve got mental conditions (but you already knew that), and we’ve got social strife – all related to the human condition. Is that not what poetry is for? We’ve also got a picture of a fantastic pupper (Pebbles) and cannon sent in by Kody Taylor! Head on over and give the issue a listen here!

by Ink

Number Five with a Cannon Ball!

Number five is alive! Short and sweet with punch and pucker, our first issue of 2023 features eight brilliant poems by five poets who bring their pages to life. We have the return of a music-backed meditation by Gregory Schwartz, three poems as diverse in their expressiveness as their focus by Kevin Hodgson, two modern and whimsical takes on myth from Laura Cooney, as well as a poem a piece from Jack Ferguson and Gerard Sarnat on, respectively, apprehension towards aging and the appreciation of being able to continue doing so. Head on over and give a listen here!

by Ink

Something Different

So, we have an idea. (A few, actually.) There’s a Discord we set up during this rag’s inception, but we rarely broadcast it and have yet to actually make use of it. That’s because, honestly, we weren’t sure if there would be any interest. However, like we said, we have an idea. (Several, actually.) And that includes bringing poets together for a live reading, a la an open mic, to be recorded as a special issue. If there’s enough interest, we’re thinking of planning it for publication between our Spring 2023 and Summer 2023 issues. Just one of the ways we’re thinking of expanding our potential and serving the poetry community. Guidelines would be two poems or five minutes per poet, with the same content guidelines as Stanza Cannon proper.

We want to know what you think. Would this be something you’d like to listen to/participate in? If so…

Would you rather readings on a theme as opposed to a free-for-all, vice-versa, or alternating issues that feature one or the other?

Since slots will be limited but open to all on a first-come-first-read sign-up sheet, how long, rounded to the nearest 15 minutes, would your ideal listen be?

Should we do a Grab Bag, where poets read a couple of their own poems and then one from each other chosen at random by the EIC?

Would you prefer an audience (as a reader, as a listener) for clapping/snapping/wooting during or at the ends of poems?

Leave a comment below to let us know, or hit us up on the socials!

Mastodon — Twitter — Facebook — Instagram

by Ink

Issue No. 3 and 4 are live!

The third and fourth issues of Stanza Cannon are live, and we are swooning! Listen to all collective contributions as a playlist or select tracks to play one at a time as is your pleasure. We cannot possibly thank enough those talented artists who trusted us with their work. It means the world to us to be able to broadcast your voices.

A reminder: Submissions are open 24/7/365, but we are currently accepting for our Spring 2023 Issue due out in March, and that includes the Grab Bag.

So go. Listen. Be inspired. Submit, and break the sound barrier.

by Ink

Be Our Billboard

Be a walking billboard for us while touting your love of oral (poetry). Stanza Cannon now has merch available in the form of a couple tees and bag that tout (and in one instance totes) your love for, well, this very site! The tees are priced basically for $0 profit to be as inexpensive as possible as to help get our address in front of more faces, and any profit made will be funneled right back into keeping the site up and running. Don’t forget to tag us in your SM avenue of choice (twitter, facebook, instagram) when you receive/wear them so we can shout it from the digital mountaintop.

And if you’d rather the full Stanza Cannon logo on other things (hats, mugs, bath/beach towels, notebooks, etc.), head on over to our Redbubble store. Same deal as above, any profit made is funneled right back into helping the site recoup operational costs.

by Ink

Issue No. 2 is live!

The second issue of Stanza Cannon is live, and we can’t believe it either! Click here to listen to all collective contributions as a playlist or select tracks to play one at a time as is your pleasure. We cannot possibly thank enough those talented artists who trusted us with their work. It means the world to us to be able to broadcast your voices.

Also, a huge thank you to Black Market Eagle for our new SM icon and logo! (Goodbye, MS Paint-ed masterworks from our EIC.) It’s gorgeous, and we cannot recommend them enough.

A reminder: Submissions are open for our autumnal Issue No. 3 due out in September, and that includes the Grab Bag, which one courageous soul has already submitted to and is awaiting a poem to record and read in kind.

So go. Listen. Be inspired. Submit, and break the sound barrier.

by Ink

Issue No. 1 is live!

The very first issue of Stanza Cannon is live, and we couldn’t be more excited. Listen to all collective contributions as a playlist or one by one at your own leisure here. Many heartfelt thanks for those talented artists who trusted us with their work so far. We are very, very eager to hear what’s to come! Submissions are open for Issue No. 2, and that includes the Grab Bag. So go listen. Be inspired. Break the sound barrier.

by Ink

On Our Knees (Open for Submission)

What’s up, world?! Stanza Cannon is officially live and . . . unfinished. If you find our look WordPress-ish, that’s because that’s the platform we’re currently using until we settle on a Web developer, and we’re using a temporary header while we await our commissioned artwork. So ignore the scaffolding and safety tape, because we are open during construction and welcoming submissions for our inaugural issue.

As we seek to make Stanza Cannon a quarterly publication, the big #1 is planned for publication in March 2022. As a lot of people will probably be waiting to see how this experiment goes before submitting, we’re going to do everything possible to make sure the first issue is the best it can be. The submission period for Issue #1 closes February 28, 2022.

For guidelines for how to get in on the ground floor, visit the Submissions page. We can’t wait to hear (from) you.