Edmund Conti has had the usual 500 or so poems published in the usual places (assuming Poetry and The New Yorker are not the usual places). He started off writing light verse and stopped, not because he became world-weary, but editor-weary, editors who were quick to say “if it rhymes we don’t want it.” So Edmund reverted to free verse, free in his case being the freedom to rhyme when he chose to and scan when it pleased him.
Conti won the Willard Espy Prize for Light Verse in 2001 and can’t seem to forget that. He is still spending the thousand dollars that came with it. He also won the more forgettable Ruby Muse prize ($15). He has recent acceptances from Light, Lighten-up Online, Asses of Parnassus, new verse news, Rotary Dial and Verse-Virtual. He also invented a word game, “Bananagrams” (anagrams to drive you bananas) that ran for a while in Word Ways and Games Magazine.
Paperback: 44 pagesPublisher: Kelsay Books (August 17, 2018)