Tag Archives: Poetry

Introducing Gandy Dancer 6.1 Section Heads

Posted by Merrin Sardi, Fiction Reader for issue 6.1

We are already half way through the semester but it’s never too late to meet the new section heads! Below, each editor explains what prompted them to sign on as a section head this semester, and tells us what they are hoping to encounter in our submission pile. Perhaps their views will inspire you to submit a piece or two to the literary magazine. Our deadline has been extended until 10/22. Continue reading

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Former Contributors: What They’re Doing Now

Posted by Sara Munjack, Arts Editor and Poetry Reader for issue 6.1, Former contributor for issue 4.1.

A quick glance at where former Gandy Dancer contributors are now is all that is necessary to confirm that the literary journal acts as a spring board which propels emerging writers into the writing trajectory Poet Yael Massen, who just finished her MFA at Indiana University is currently working on a poetry manuscript, which she says is “emotionally exhausting.” Her poems can be found in Gandy Dancer’s inaugural issue. Since, she has been published in several literary journals including Columbia Journal, Tupelo Quarterly, Southern Indiana Review, The Journal, and has a couple of poems forthcoming in print issues of Colorado Review and Fifth Wednesday Journal. She has also begun working on contemporary Hebrew poem translations—two of which have been published in Waxwing. Continue reading

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Love and Poetry in a Dark Time: Dante Di Stefano’s Love is a Stone Endlessly in Flight

Posted by Evan Goldstein, GD Managing Editor for 5.2

I finished Love is a Stone Endlessly in Flight, Dante Di Stefano’s debut poetry collection, alone under the harsh fluorescent lamp that hangs above my dinner table. It was a frigid winter night, and the wind howled its way under the door to my house and into the living room. Earlier, I had spent considerable time looking out of my bedroom window: trash and lost milk crates skated across the concrete past the students fighting their way to campus in the wind.

It’s easy, especially on Western New York winter nights like this, to feel unhopeful. We live in an unhopeful time, as well. As we watch the authoritarian Trump administration double down on America’s long bipartisan history of war abroad and austerity and state terror at home it can be easy to forget where to find hope, or at least solace, in the day by day. Continue reading

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When The Autistic Evaluates Poetry


Posted by
Megan Grant, GD Poetry Reader for 5.2

When I find myself bemoaning the five hours and nine minutes between my friend Chrissy and me, I read her poetry out loud to myself.  I sit cross-legged in front of my bleached-wooden bookshelf and run my fingers across novels and memoirs until they rest on Issue 3.1 of Gandy Dancer.  Chrissy’s poems are printed on page thirty-one; the journal bends open to her.

I have memorized the degree of emphasis of each syllable, the number of milliseconds between every dash and line break.  The stanzas sound like Chrissy, despite our voices’ differing timbres.  However, no matter how many times I recite her poems, both the ones she wrote in college and the new ones she’s written while pursuing her MFA a UMass, I still cannot comprehend what it means to be, “subatomic reactions daisychained in fractals,” or to, “supernova against your stringbean cilia.”  I can’t quite figure out all of what the poems are saying. Continue reading

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What am I even doing here? Writing and Existential Angst

Posted by Lily Codera, GD Poetry Reader for 5.2

So you’ve decided to write, and nothing is going to stop you. You’re going to write, and no number of soul-draining barista or restaurant server positions (on the side) can slow your momentum now. At this point, you may have developed a routine that allows you to work on your writing regularly; you may have even pinpointed your most productive time of day so as to “protect” it, like Kate Daloz suggested at her recent reading. Maybe your dad has finally come to terms with the fact that you’re probably not going to become the doctor or lawyer that he always wanted you to be. Great. So why do you still feel so unsettled about all this? Continue reading

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Meet the New Editors for Gandy Dancer 5.2

Posted by Jeanna Foti, GD Fiction Reader for 5.2

With a new semester, comes a brand new issue of Gandy Dancer! As the submission deadline approaches, this semester’s new group of editors is eager to dive in and get started on issue 5.2. In the meantime, I’ve asked the new section heads a couple of questions in order to properly introduce them to our readers. This semester, we have two creative non-fiction co-editors, Josh DeJoy and Meghan Fellows. We have Jackie Shost as our fiction editor, Kallie Swyer as our poetry editor, and Noah Mazer as our art editor. Continue reading

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National Book Review Month: An Interview with Dr. Lytton Smith

Posted by Grace Rowan, GD Non-Fiction Reader for 5.2

When most people think of the month of February, events such as Valentine’s Day, Black History Month, and President’s Day come to mind. What you may not know is that February is also National Book Review Month. Here at SUNY Geneseo, we are celebrating books of all genres through the English Department’s second annual National Book Review Month (NaRMo). Readers can submit reviews of their favorite books to the NaRMo website: www.narmo.milne-library.org. The website provides five easy steps to writing a book review and how to submit the review once completed. NaRMo is accepting reviews from a variety of genres including Children’s Books, Drama, Fiction, Non-Fiction, and Poetry. Continue reading

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Supporting Developing Artists with Italics Mine

Gandy Dancer's Review of SUNY Purchase's literary journal, Italics MinePosted by Gabi Garcia, GD Poetry Reader for 5.1

This semester as I was editing for the Gandy Dancer I got the opportunity to review the literary magazine from one of our sister schools, SUNY Purchase, the art school of the SUNY system. The phrase Italics Mine refers to using italics in a paper to emphasize a word or phrase in a quote to bring the reader’s attention to your point. I think I’ve overused this tactic a few times when I was a freshman, so I was pretty excited to see there were other folks who share my enthusiasm for emphasis. What I think is wonderful about this title is that it expresses that there are moments, words, images in our lives and environments that are emphasized by artists and are defining for them as artists (emphasis, much like this entire blog post, mine). Continue reading

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5 Literary Journals for New Writers, plus Cover Letter Help

Posted by David Sabol, GD Poetry Reader for 5.15 Literary Journals for New Writers, plus Cover Letter Help

As we all know, starting a career as a writer is pretty difficult. You’re a young writer who’s practiced your craft for years, writing page after page of work, until finally, you’ve written something that you feel the literary world needs to see… Now what? Most people don’t know where to go from here, whether they’re in high school or college. Continue reading

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Joan Kane’s Poetry and the Question of Quietness

Posted by Isabel Owen, GD Creative Nonfiction Reader for 5.1Joan Kane’s Poetry and the Question of Quietness

On Thursday, November 10, the Geneseo Literary Forum had the honor of hosting Inupiaq poet Joan Naviyuk Kane who made her way to Geneseo from her home in Anchorage, Alaska. A faculty member of the MFA Program at the Institute of American Indian Arts, Kane’s recent accolades include the 2013 Arts and Cultures Foundation Literature Fellowship and the Whiting Writer’s award for her poetry collection, The Cormorant Hunter’s Wife. Her poetry, rich with the scenery of her Arctic home, exposes convergences of family and isolation, of geographic and spiritual, and of the translatable and the intrinsic. Most of all, her poetry asks us to question those labels and the fragmented reality they imply.  Continue reading

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