World Class Poetry Blog

Here’s an interesting project, and a revolutionary way to market poetry. What do you think?

Here’s a bird poetry contest.

Speaking of birds, meet Amy Clampitt.

Poet Laureate Charles Simic’s swan song.

Gary Snyder wins $100,000 poetry prize.

More on birds:

How about loons?

This week I’ve published a review of Variations on a Natural Theme: A Loon Year by Hugh Hennedy. Here’s a poem from the selection (you can read another one in the review):

On the Surface Loon
In no apparent hurry
To dive out of it
He rides and bobs in sun

Standing now he bathes
Wings spread wide for balance
His white breast in air

It’s time to review the Millennial Poetics philosophy once more simply because I’ve thought of another principle that should be added. It’s the 10th, but I’d prefer to call them columns.

There’s a reason I want to call them columns. In architecture, a column has a specific purpose; really, it is a dual purpose. On the one hand, they are decorative. On the other hand, they offer support to a building’s roof. But the distance between the foundation and the roof can depend on the length of the column, the style of architecture, and various other factors. In certain historic cultures, a column could also bear a certain mythological significance. It could serve as an archetype as much as anything else. I think when you are building a magnificent structure for which there is no duplicate you must consider its structural support, its design, and its cultural (or mythological) significance. Such is the case with Millennial Poetics.

To review, the previous 9 pillars, or columns, of this school of poetics are:

1. Craft is of utmost importance
2. There is no room for prejudice
3. Form is just another element of craft
4. Creativity and craft go hand in hand
5. No topic is taboo
6. There is no such thing as language that is too archaic
7. All poems are individuals
8. There is no acceptable method to writing poetry
9. All convention should be shunned

I won’t elaborate on them here. You can read about each column, previously referred to as principles, by revisiting my blog series on that subject here. What I’d like to do now is discuss the 10th column, which is, namely: Technology may be used to enhance the poetry experience.

Technology May Be Used To Enhance
The Poetry Experience
With A Brief History Of The Internet
New technologies always advance old art forms. Gutenberg’s press took the art of writing in all media to a new level of mass communication. The advent of the computer allowed artists and writers, creators of all sorts, a new kind of ability. The personal computer made accessible to the average man and woman what before was available to only those who could afford a computer. The PC was affordable to all.

The Internet is really not that new. It’s been around for a half century, but was very primitive in its natural, or original, state, and was only available to researchers and military personnel. In fact, the ARPANET was created specifically to allow researchers the ability to communicate with each other in ways that before were unheard of. For nearly 40 years, the ARPA community grew into a vast network of researchers, government agencies, and military personnel, who were able to share information across long distances without having to use unsecure phone lines or pay large amounts of money on communication systems.

People have been able to communicate by e-mail by as early as 1971. FTP, File Transfer Protocol, has been available since 1973. In the 1970s, the ARPANET flourished and communications between computers across long distances became even more prevalent. In order to participate in the network, a station had to have a node, a special way to connect to the Net. Otherwise, access was not possible. In 1983, the U.S. military took part of that ARPANET and created the MILNET.

Also during this time, several independent networks developed that allowed their users to communicate with each, but they were more limited than the ARPANET or MILNET. Someone came up with the brilliant idea to connect these networks and that led to the development of The Internet in the 1980s. When commercial interests began to find applications for this new mode of information delivery, widespread use picked up speed and by the mid-1990s, almost everyone in the U.S. had heard of the the Internet and many of them were connected at least by e-mail.

What’s Poetry Got To Do With It?
So what does any of this have to do with poetry? Well, we’re talking about new media, correct? Specifically, this discussion is of the Internet and Internet-delivery systems. There is technology available to the average man and woman today that was not available even 10 years ago. I remember when Yahoo! was a simple directory. In 1995, you could go online and search Yahoo! for poetry websites. There were a ton of them.

It was around that time when serious-minded businessmen started figuring out ways to market themselves online. By the time Google got its start in the late 1990s, there were people making serious money online. And they had no idea about search engine optimization back then.

Since that time, new technologies like Flash, web-delivered video, podcasts, and e-books have emerged. These are all great delivery systems for poetry and all have been used to a degree of success by online poets. We have yet to tap into their full potential. I believe the future looks bright for poetry online and new technologies that have not yet been imagined can take poetry into unheard of directions. Already, online poets are experimenting with hypertext poems, Flash video poetry, and poetry radio through podcasts. Some of these are very creative endeavors.

Poets in the 21st century have available to them resources that the majority of humanity prior to 1950 would never have imagined. If Gutenberg could see what we are tinkering with today he’d go ape over it. Many great thinkers of the past could have extended their influence way beyond what they were capable of if they’d had access to these same tools. Poets today are blessed. I see further specialization and nichefication among poets occurring as a result of technology. That’s not a bad thing. It means that poetry is on the rise and new media means new modes of delivery. It also means new ways to be creative. Technology and poetry go hand in hand; the question is, How will we make the best use of them?

This has got to be a world record: I received a rejection notice in 24 days.

I sent a manuscript to 32 Poems on February 28. I got my rejection notice last night, March 23. That must be a world record.

I used Manuscript Hub to submit two poems to 32 Poems because I wanted to test the service. But I’d also pegged 32 Poems as a place I’d like to get published in. Manuscript Hub made the process real simple. No stamps, no drive to the mailbox (since I live in rural Adams County, Pa., the mailbox is a quarter mile drive or walk), no long waiting line for acceptance or rejection, and no hassles.

Since you can expect a manuscript to be in the mail for up to a week in each direction, 24 days from submission to rejection, or acceptance, is pretty good. The snail mail process usually takes at least 2-3 months, and that’s fast. Through Manuscript Hub, I got my answer in less than a month.

Initially, I thought the $2 fee for submission was a little bit overpriced, but if I can save myself two months in the submission process and free my poems up to submit somewhere else then it might be well worth it after all. While I might spend more on delivery fees overall, I also run less of a risk of pissing off editors and publishers by double submitting (and some editors will not accept submissions from you again if you jerk them around that way so it’s a big risk), and if the process can be sped along by a month or more on each submission then I may be able to move myself closer to a full book manuscript sooner due to the circulation of single poems in journals. I’m using the first person in writing this, but the point is these factors apply to anyone. Having a book of poems published six months sooner due to faster answers on submissions to journals could mean more books getting published and more financial rewards in the long run. That could very well make up for the difference in delivery fees.

And the rejection letter, this is the best part, was a personal letter from the publisher herself. That’s always nice. Most publishers, when they reject you for publication, will simply send an impersonal note, “Sorry, no dice!” Pardon my paraphrase. I can understand it considering that publishers are busy people. You can’t craft a personal note for every writer who sends a manuscript your way. But a personal note can go a long way to encourage a writer to keep submitting. And that’s the bonus. Encouragement. Thanks to 32 Poems and Manuscript Hub for making the submission process much easier and affordable. I hope more journals start taking online submissions.

Two days ago I offered a few tips on how to market your poetry online. Generally speaking, most of the marketing tips have to do with after you get your poetry published, either in an off line poetry journal or an online journal. But a poet doesn’t necessarily need to be published in those journals. They can do a lot to increase one’s reputation as a poet and the credits are always nice, but many fine poets don’t seek publication in journals. Nevertheless, the marketing tactics I shared then can be used by poets who publish in journals and poets who do not.

Today, I’d like to share a few other ways you can promote your poetry online. There are more ways than simply what I mentioned in that blog post. Below are a few other ways to market your poetry online:

• Publish your own e-zine (also known as newsletter) - A newsletter doesn’t have to be real elaborate and it doesn’t have to have a large circulation. You can put a sign up box (or opt-in form) on your blog and take subscriptions. In your e-zine, you can list the places your poetry has been published, sell your chapbooks, list your latest blog posts (as I do), share poetry writing tips, and even promote and publish the poetry of others. There is a time commitment to doing this, of course, but you can pick up a few more chapbook sales with the right effort.
• Start a website - You have a blog, right? Why not a website? Again, it doesn’t have to be huge or elaborate (like mine). You can set up a five-page website that includes your poet bio, lists your books and chapbooks for sale, showcases a handful of your poems to whet people’s appetites, features a few audio recordings and videos of you reading your poems, and asks people to opt in to your e-zine. Real smart, real short, real promotional. You can do it for $10 per year (and the time it takes to learn how to use HTML and CSS to design your website).
• Really Simple Syndication - RSS is a newfangled technology that lets people subscribe to your content and read it in their e-mail box or in a feed reader like Google Reader. I have an RSS feed for this blog. Look on the left sidebar at the top, under where it says “Syndicate Me”, click the top button with the words “RSS Feed” on it and you’ll be taken to a page that allows you to choose your feed reader. It’s not as difficult to understand as you might think. Google Reader is free.
• BlogCatalog - BlogCatalog is a blog directory. It’s just one of several (believe me, there are a ton of these). List your blog for free and network with others. It’s real easy to promote yourself through BlogCatalog.
• Facebook and MySpace - Both social networking sites make it real easy to set up a page. They are free and you can network with other poets, add them as friends, interest them in your poetry and drive them to your blog. You probably already know how to find them. If not, google “Facebook” and “MySpace” separately. You’ll find them.
• MetaxuCafe - MetaxuCafe is a community of literary blogs. You can join the network. List your blog for free and attract new readers of your poetry blog.
• Blogsboro Poetry Club - Billy the Blogging Poet has some great ideas for marketing poetry. He even has a network of bloggers that share a blog and all you have to do is post a few lines of your poem then link your post back to your blog. You can’t post an entire poem at Blogsboro Poetry Club. You can only post a part of a poem, but that’s what it’s for. It is to pique the interest of readers so that they click the link and go to your blog. Good tool.
• Write Reviews - By reviewing poetry and publishing your reviews in journals and other online publications, you can attract a whole new audience to your website and blog. There are many places, both online and off line that accept reviews. Rattle, a place where I recently published a review, is a poetry journal and they accept reviews. You can also submit a review to World Class Poetry.
• World Class Poetry Toolbar - You can have your blog listed in the World Class Poetry Toolbar. Totally free. No obligation. Just fill out the contact form on my website and let me know that you’d like to be included in the toolbar. I’ll check out your blog (blogs only, no websites) and add it to the toolbar so toolbar users can access your blog. Of course, you can download the toolbar yourself and access other poetry blogs.

So there you have it, 9 more ways to market your poetry online. And that’s just a start. But isn’t it nice to know that you have so many ways to market your poetry online?

I got to thinking about all the poetry blogs out there that are mostly poets publishing their own verse in hopes of finding an audience. Maybe they are fishing for compliments from strangers or just lonely and have a lot of time on their hands. Maybe some of them are truly good poets, but they don’t know how to go about marketing their poetry. I’m willing to give most of them the benefit of the doubt.

But I’m not going to rant about the quality (or lack of it) in these poetry blogs. Instead, I have another thought on my mind. It has to do with how to go about posting your poetry online. This is primarily aimed at poets who really are worth their salt as poets and deserve credit for their craft, but anyone can benefit from it.

Question: Should you post your own poetry on your blog?

Why I Don’t Post (Much Of) My Poetry On My Blog
Poetry is a passion for me. It started in college. I’d been writing since the fifth grade when I was assigned the task, along with every other member of my class, of writing an autobiography. I had to actually interview people who knew about when and where I was born and ask them pointed questions about the earlier parts of my life that I wasn’t sure about. And I had to include photos. I remember one photo was a cut out of a baby picture that appeared in a newspaper in California on my first birthday. Thanks Mom!

Digression aside, I fell in love with writing. I thoroughly enjoyed the process. Throughout school, I was fortunate enough to always be encouraged by teachers who knew of my love of writing. My parents, I gathered, couldn’t have cared less. My Dad particularly. I often used writing as a way to escape the drudgery of being raised by simpleton rednecks. But I didn’t write poetry. My big ambition growing up was to be a novelist.

When I left home I joined the Army and kept a journal, but I mostly filled my wild oats. My parents were overly strict so I missed out on a lot of experiences other high school students participated in. I worked when they played and when they played, I wrote. In the Army I found a world. Then I mustered out and went to college.

While in college, I decided to take a poetry workshop. I was a natural. Once the floodgates opened, I just let loose. The poetry came, people were shocked, I got laid a few times (though I never really understood why or how), and I thrusted myself full force into the passion of verse. I found the writing life insatiable. I couldn’t get enough (the sex was just a bonus).

The problem for me then was I knew how to write. I could make people laugh, cry, puke, or want to kill their mother. There was power in words. I knew it. But I didn’t know how to market my poetry, and I was too self-enclosed to ask anyone, so I didn’t get much published. But I did see a few credits come my way, mostly by stumbling upon them.

Over the years, as my emotions have evened out, I took a different focus. I quit writing for awhile after my conversion to Christianity, but I couldn’t let the lawn unwatered for long. I migrated back to the only thing that I really had a passion for. Poetry. Unlike my early years when I spent almost all of my time writing and trying to perfect my craft, now adays I spend my time marketing, although I don’t send out enough manuscripts (regrettably). I do spend a lot of time at open mic readings and self-publishing chapbooks.

But I’ve discovered that many poetry publishers won’t publish poems that have appeared online. There is still a prejudice among many traditional poetry journals, academic journals in particular, about any kind of poetry published online. That means that if a poet wants to be published in those journals then he must be carefully guarded about where his poetry appears previously. Some journals that don’t have a prejudice about publishing online have strict policies about poems that have appeared in forums and on blogs. They won’t publish them. While other journals do allow for limited exposure of poems online, such as in forums, online critique workshops, and personal blogs, publishing one’s own poetry on a personal blog will limit to a certain degree the marketability of one’s poems. Therefore, I don’t publish my own poetry on my blog unless it has been previously published elsewhere.

But there is another reason I don’t publish my own poetry here on this blog (with a few exceptions). By doing so, I devalue it in other ways. For instance, some poets will publish poem after poem after poem on their personal blogs. Doing this limits the number of chapbooks one can sell at open mic poetry readings. By making your poems available online for free you in essence give no one any motivation to pay you the $3 to $5 you might get for a handful of them in a little chapbook. For me, one open mic poetry reading can pay for itself in chapbook sales so that’s an important reason not to offer everything I have of value for free.

When Should You Publish Your Poetry Online?
It’s not that I’m against self publishing. Obviously, I’m not. Since I do self publish my chapbooks, that’s not the issue. It’s simply a decision that I’ve made based on marketing principles. Scarcity increases the value of something. Make it more scarce and people who value it will pay for it. People who won’t pay for it probably won’t appreciate it being free, so I don’t feel like I’m losing “readership” by limiting it. I actually feel like I’m gaining an audience as the people who are willing to pay me $3 for a chapbook are people who have heard me read my poetry and liked it enough that spending the $3 was worth it to them. That’s what marketing is and I’ve gotten pretty good at it.

So based on these principles, I have a suggestion for anyone who believes that their poetry is good enough to create a market for itself and wants to find that market, but they don’t want to give it all away on their poetry blog. It’s a very simple marketing plan that anyone can implement and it’s not written in stone. You can tweak it here and there to suit yourself and customize it to fit your own style and goals. But this is my simple suggestion for a way to market your poetry without selling yourself short.

The World Class Poetry Marketing Plan
This is the nutshell version without the commentary:

1. Circulate your poems as submissions to poetry journals that you think might be interested in your poems. Don’t do anything with them until you start to see acceptance letters. You might even tweak, revise, or rewrite your poems in between submissions. But keep those poems circulating until they publish. When one comes back rejected, send it somewhere else. Keep them circulating, circulating, circulating.
2. When you get an acceptance letter, buy yourself a beer (or a coffee if you don’t drink); if you’re Mormon, drink Kool-Aid. DO NOT publish your poem on your blog before it appears in the journal that accepted it. You don’t want to risk the journal editor dropping your poem like a hot potato because you were foolish enough to get so excited that you published their little gem before they got to. Poetry editors like to be the first to “discover” something, so let them be. AFTER your poem has appeared in the journal and the journal has been made available for public consumption THEN publish your poem on your blog and tell your readers where they can get a copy of the journal in which your poem appears. That promotes the journal and some of your readers will buy the journal thinking that if you got published then they can do it too (after all, they’re a much better a poet than you’ll ever be - or so they’ll think).
3. Next, record yourself reading your poem. All you need is a little digital recorder. Nothing fancy. Just a little digital recorder. You can download Audacity, a free audio editing software to edit your recording and polish it up. Be sure to include a short one or two sentence bio at the end of your poetry reading and give the URL of your blog (maybe even the precise URL of the blog post in which the print version of your poem appears). Distribute your recording to as many podcast directories as you can online.
4. Write some articles about poetry. Nothing real elaborate. Just something about the kind of poetry that you like, who your influences are, etc. But don’t make the article about you. Make it about your subject. For instance, you might write an article about Edgar Allan Poe and why he wrote “The Raven”. Again, include a bio that presents your blog URL. Distribute your article to several article directories online. People will read your article and visit your blog.
5. Next, get a small camcorder and attach it to the screen of your computer. They are very inexpensive. Video yourself reading your poem. Upload the video to YouTube, Google Video, Yahoo! Video, and several other video sharing sites. Don’t forget to include your one or two sentence bio and URL.
6. Repeat all of the above for every poem you get published. It doesn’t matter where it’s published. A lot of small poetry journals will publish your poetry if you just send it to them. After you’ve had enough poems published to make a chapbook, make a chapbook. You can get a .pdf conversion software real cheap online and you can also get book paginator software as well. Total outlay should be $60-$75. Make your chapbook available in print and .pdf. Offer it to your readers on your blog. You can also make your chapbook available on CD and include all of your audio recordings and videos in that format as an extra “at no charge”. All you have to do is sell 12 chapbooks in any of your three formats at $5 each to earn back what you spent on production software. Everything over and above that is profit.

That’s it. The World Class Poetry marketing plan. For a sample of how I’ve used this strategy myself, you can read a few poems I’ve had published and hear the audio recordings by clicking here. Scroll down to the bottom of the page for the links.

You know, you can do this too. Anyone can. It doesn’t matter what kind of poetry you write or whether you consider yourself on the same level as Edgar Allan Poe and Sylvia Plath. Truth is, you have to start somewhere and there are oodles of poetry journals and small press publications out there just waiting for your poems to arrive.

Yesterday, Ron Silliman published the first half of his answers to a questionnaire sent by the Poetry Foundation. Today, he published the second half of his answers. I am struck by how much we are alike in our thinking on these things yet so unlike in our poetry. Here are a few gems from his online rant:

And the role of the self-published book, the commercial object with perhaps the least prestige of all, has been important to poetry in the U.S. from Whitman to the web editions of today.

Poetry is the one area of literature where you can self publish and people won’t look at you like you’re some kind of odd creature of mythological lore. That is, after they stop looking at you as if you are because they discovered that you do write poetry.

The days when major publishers brought out poetry as a “loss leader” (or because some poet might turn into a profitable novelist) are almost entirely behind us.

Summed up perfectly.

The number of trade publishers who even touch poetry are so few, and their collective aesthetics so very narrow, that they have largely relegated themselves to irrelevance.

Book publishing in general is so averse to risk that it is difficult to understand why poets are so full of it. There is no other type of writer in the world willing to take so many risks as a poet worth his salt. Yet, there is hardly a book publisher in the world, even publishers that specialize in poetry books, that will take risks along with the poets they publish. Good poets are squeezed out by the trite, blase Hallmark verse of Helen Steiner Rice. If the publishing world were to rest its eyes on today’s equivalent to William Shakespeare or Alexander Pope, they’d mistake him for a bus driver.

The same social forces that are creating pressures on the book industry are having an impact on society at large – they register as as rising demands upon time and the decline of literacy overall. What a curious moment in history to have more poets than ever before. And more good poets at that. One sometimes imagines that we will soon become a nation of poets, but simultaneously a nation without readers.

I’ve heard poets criticized for “writing to each other” as if we’re some overly large country club. We almost have to write for each other because we’re the only ones reading poetry. When I go to an open mic poetry reading there are so few people in the audience who just want to be in the audience. Almost everyone feels like they should read. At most readings I go to, there is only one person there who doesn’t write poetry and therefore doesn’t read aloud. My wife. She understands that good literature must have good audiences. Where are the rest of the poetry lovers who don’t write?

Where Silliman’s Brilliance Really Shines

I would love to see some of the money that is currently being misused by the National Endowment of the Arts to promote dead British playwrights redirected to ensure that each major metropolitan area has at least one decent retail outlet for poetry.

I’m not a big fan of the NEA, but I have to laugh at this. Dead British playwrights? I wouldn’t redirect any NEA funds. I’d cut them off altogether. But the idea of ensuring that every major metro area has at least one decent retail outlet for poetry is a good idea. If I did support funding for the NEA, that would be one area where I might agree to spend it.

By substantial I mean a minimum of 1,000 titles, not more than 25 percent of which are published by trade presses nor more than 25 percent by university presses, with at least five percent of the stock being chapbooks.

1,000 titles. That’s pretty substantial in terms of poetry books. Not many book stores carry that many poetry titles. Of course, they’re more interested in selling the autobiographies of strippers and other such pickled pabulum. But I like the 25/25 requirement. I’d up the 5% for chapbooks to at least 10%. I think self-published chapbooks is an area that should be encouraged as much as possible. It’s the one area where I think most poets can see the best return on their time and energy investment. We go through so much trouble to create the output and most of us never see a dime for our efforts. For me, I know I can spend hours revising a single poem and publish it in chapbook form with ten or a dozen other poems and sell two or three chapbooks at every reading I attend for months. The $3-$5 I charge for them will usually pay for my gas to drive to the readings and sometimes even a beer and/or a snack afterwards during social hour.

A separate mechanism that might be created even by the Poetry Foundation itself would be a mechanism for the sale and distribution of chapbooks and print-on-demand volumes, perhaps coordinated by Booksense, but with a common front end on the web so that readers could turn to a single source for finding these difficult-to-obtain items.

I actually prefer this solution above the first. I’m a believer in free markets. Poetry is being read. It’s being written. And a lot of it is good. One reason poetry doesn’t sell is because there is no distribution outlet as Silliman craftily points out. When I walk into Barnes & Noble or another major chain store and go to the poetry section, almost every title I see is a classic. I love the classics, but how will contemporary readers of poetry ever be exposed to anything else if they aren’t exposed to contemporary poets at the places where they shop? Universities seldom sell their journals through retail stores. University and small presses seldom distribute their books through the retail chains. One reason I suspect they don’t is because the return policy of distributors makes it a money-losing proposition for them. This somehow needs to change.

Teaching Poetry K-12
Let’s get real. The state-run education system is failing miserably. It’s failing the students. It’s failing the parents. It’s failing the teachers. It’s failing society. It’s failing itself. As a society, however, we are in denial of this fact. One of the areas where this failure is most evident is in the teaching of literature.

I love how Silliman states the obvious (what is obvious to those few of us who know it):

Whether you are a new formalist or a slam poet, a visual poet or a language writer, the absolute materiality of the signifier, the physicality of sound and of the graphic letter, is the one secret shared by all poets to which nonreaders of poetry seem literally clueless.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read a poem and someone will say to me, “I don’t get what it all means, but I like it.” I always just feel like punching them in the face. Most of the time, the people who don’t get it are the same people people who misinterpret simple wording of Bible verses and the Fourth Amendment. People don’t understand hyperbole or metaphor anymore. At one time, these figures of speech were so common that if you didn’t know how to recognize them then you couldn’t get by socially. Today, it’s just the opposite. If you can identify the figures of speech then you are the social outcast. People have been so ingrained to take things literally that when it comes time to analyze language for any purpose at all they are entirely lost. Oh, but they “like” it. I have to remind myself of that.

This is a larger problem than just one for poetry – it is one consequence among many of the larger issues confronting our schools in general. Dropping a few poets-in-the-schools into programs like a Marine strike force is hardly going to undercut the message students get continually, day after day, that language is to be mined for “information” that can be later regurgitated in test formats. It is more, even, than just the goal of developing critical thinkers, tho it is one important aspect of this. Until such time as our schools are given the resources they need in order to really address the whole child, not just managing to standardized tests, we haven’t a chance.

Again, I’m with Silliman all the way up to that last sentence. The schools have plenty of resources. They aren’t using them. They don’t know what to do with them. Or someone somewhere ties their hands so that they don’t fully realize the benefits of them. Some parent wants to restrict the reading of great works of literature because they are offended by some racial slur, or an innocent sex scene, or simply an idea that they can’t get behind. Works like Huckleberry Finn, Pride and Prejudice, and Lord of the Flies have all been targets of censorship by parents, school boards, or some religious or political group. Instead of teaching children how to think critically on difficult subjects we teach them instead to hide their heads in the sand so they don’t have to deal with them. It is hardly any wonder that students being home schooled are outpacing students in public schools in almost every area. How ironic it is that these are the kids who are made fun of by the C students from public schools who are elected president (or selected for Speaker Of The House) and their bully-on-the-playground friends.

Ron’s Brilliance, My Delight
In all, I’m very impressed with Ron Silliman’s thought process on the Poetry Foundation questionnaire. He said a lot of things that needs to be said. I disagree on a few points, but they are so minor that they hardly are worth noting (with the exception of my political leanings, of course). Nevertheless, if poetry is to survive the 21st century, poets and poetry publishers need to find a way to distribute poetry to an audience that loves to read it but has no interest in being involved in its production. They need to look for my wife.

Tracy Repchuk wrote a great article titled “Top 10 Ways To Get Your Poetry Promoted.” I think you’d find it an interesting read.

Repchuk is president and founder of Canadian Federation of Poets and president and founder of Poetry Canada magazine. Her tips are absolutely right on. Here they are in a nutshell:

1. Post it at the office
2. Make your own cards or calendar
3. Create a chapbook
4. Send it to your local paper
5. Submit to magazines
6. Attend an open mic
7. Snail mail a poem
8. Crash a Karaoke Night
9. Enter a contest
10. Help poetry to help you

I like the idea of reading your poetry at karaoke night. I haven’t thought of that. You can also join an artists in the schools or poets in the schools program and share your poetry with students. You can send them to local or national radio shows. NPR has some great poetry shows. Other ways to promote your poetry in the 21st century include:

• Blogging
• Publish a website
• Podcast your poems
• Submit them to free distribution sites like Buzzle
• Ask other bloggers to critique them on their blogs (send me your poem and I’ll critique it right here on World Class Poetry Blog
• Add a photo or graphic to it and distribute it as a free .pdf broadside
• You can also make print broadsides

There are countless ways to promote your poetry. These are just a few ideas. You can likely come up with your own. To read Repchuk’s entire article, head over to World Class Poetry. We now have an articles section of our website. Feel free to submit your own articles on poetry.

Be sure to look for daily and weekly updates to the World Class Poetry articles section. We will continue to publish great articles on poetry and poetics. Get the weekly updates by e-mail when you subscribe to Hyperbole e-zine (and you’ll get a free .pdf broadside of my poem “Tattoo”).

PRESS RELEASE:

Choices, Inc. is pleased to announce the next two installments of the acclaimed The Poetry Lounge DVD series - The Poetry Lounge 2: The Power of Poetics and The Poetry Lounge 3: The Power of Performance.

Based on the weekly performances of ‘Da Poetry Lounge, the largest weekly open mic event in the country, the new DVDs focus on specific aspects of spoken word writing and performance.

In The Poetry Lounge 2 - The Power of Poetics, spoken word artists discuss various poetic techniques they use while creating their works. The Poetry Lounge 3 - The Power of Performance covers how the artists prepare and perform their work in front of an audience.

Each DVD includes performances and interviews from such noted spoken word artists as Sekou the Misfit, Brutha Gimel, Gina Loring, In-Q, Paul Mabon, Poetri and more. The artists discuss topics ranging from personal faith to dealing with the loss of a loved one and inner-city issues.

Filmed before a live audience and produced in collaboration with educational advisors including Alexs Pate, Award Winning Novelist Assistant Professor of Afro-American and African Studies at the University of Minnesota and Dr. Paula Wolfe, Associate Professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Literacy Studies, the new titles seek to engage and inform audiences of all ages on the power of the spoken word.

When asked about his ongoing involvement with The Poetry Lounge series, Pierson Blaetz, Artistic Director of the Greenway Court Theatre said, “Looking for inspiration…I’ve found all I need from these leaders of the spoken word movement. You can’t turn away from this potent mix of talent and wisdom.”

Special Features will include a Photo Gallery, Poetry Booklet, ‘Da Poetry Lounge History and a Lesson Plan written by Dr. Paula Wolfe.

Howard Junker of Zyzzyvaspeaks is proud to have survived. Quite frankly, so am I.

Junker is so proud of his pronouncement to survive that he proclaims, “Not helping this year will be the NEA.” I must confess, the NEA has never done anything for me either. What’s interesting about Junker’s confession, however, is that he has been a recipient of NEA grant money for two years, but was turned down this year, and says,

At least for now, however, I can, without seeming hypocritical, insist that I don’t think the Feds should be involved in arts funding in the first place.

Hmmm … did he feel that way last year? How about the year before? Maybe Mr. Junker should feel hypocritical because he sure does seem it. And I just love his next proclamation, which is one that I can agree with:

Let the people spend their own money. Let artists struggle without the alleged benevolence of the regime.

Yes, I fully and wholeheartedly agree, even if Mr. Junker is being hypocritical. Artists don’t need government funding. None. At. All.

Junker points to an article published by the Cato Institute as evidence of government-sponsored favoritism. But do you really need a libertarian policy think tank to tell you that government-sponsored art and literature is a walk through the Devil’s palace? Not if you have principles.

It seems that I am not alone among literary artists who make a point to shun NEA grants. Examples quoted in the Cato article include:

“The writer doesn’t need economic freedom. All he needs is a pencil and paper. I’ve never known anything good in writing to come from having accepted any free gift of money. The good writer never applies to a foundation. He’s too busy writing something.”(57)

William Faulkner

John Updike:

“I would rather have as my patron a host of anonymous citizens digging into their own pockets for the price of a book or a magazine than a small body of enlightened and responsible men administering public funds.”(58)

and

“Every serious artist knows that he cannot enjoy public celebration without making subtle public commitments.” (62)

Robert Lowell

Who can argue with these voices?

I’ve never applied for a grant. I don’t want to. I figure he who holds the gold makes the rules. By that measure, Jesse Helms has every right to demand that certain types of arts not be funded. But if no arts were funded then Helms’ points would be moot. It isn’t that artists don’t make choices in life.

The Only King Poetry Needs Is The Free Market
I’ve always believed that artisans and their work should be subject to free markets. If enough people like your work then they will buy it. Whether your work is painting by watercolor, writing haiku, or making independent music and movies, if there is a market for your work then you can survive. If there is no market then you will perish. I’m tired of seeing mediocre work propped up by the public purse. It’s unjust.

The economics can be easily explained. If artists have to work harder to produce artwork worth purchasing and they can not find buyers then there will be some fallout. Mediocre writers, painters, sculptors, and musicians who cannot market their creations will stop producing or change their styles. The cream will rise to the top. Mediocrity will no longer be rewarded and true artists will excel in producing and marketing their creations to the people who appreciate it the most. Publishers will spend their time looking for artists with talent rather than someone who fits the right profile for a handout. The free market worked for Madonna; why not Joy Harjo? Why not you and me?

I will likely be lambasted with insults for taking this stand, but I do believe it is time for poets, painters, and other artists to take responsibility for their creations. Find your market, and when you do, sell them something. If they won’t buy, they’re not your market.

Thanks to Jim Murdoch for engaging in dialog with me over the matter of poetry. Other voices added to the conversation would be nice as well.

I wanted to add a little something extra. Of course, the spark that started it all was Dana Gioia’s essay, “Can Poetry Matter?” While retrieving the essay so that I can quote from it for this post I found another, shorter, essay written by Gioia, which I had read before but forgotten. The essay is aptly titled “Being Outed.” In this essay, Gioia talks about his hidden secret while in the corporate world - he wrote poetry - and how it came to pass that his secret was let out. I can honestly say I’ve never felt the need to hide my passion for poetry. I probably should have. But it never occurred to me to do so. Nevertheless, I do sense a common theme, that non-poets, when they find that someone they know writes poetry and they would have thought otherwise, have the same reaction. Funny, that.

Now, back on the poetic matter at hand. Gioia wrote of six things that poets can do to make poetry matter again. I’d be curious to know your thoughts:

1. When poets give public readings, they should spend part of every program reciting other people’s work—preferably poems they admire by writers they do not know personally. Readings should be celebrations of poetry in general, not merely of the featured author’s work.

2. When arts administrators plan public readings, they should avoid the standard subculture format of poetry only. Mix poetry with the other arts, especially music. Plan evenings honoring dead or foreign writers. Combine short critical lectures with poetry performances. Such combinations would attract an audience from beyond the poetry world without compromising quality.

3. Poets need to write prose about poetry more often, more candidly, and more effectively. Poets must recapture the attention of the broader intellectual community by writing for nonspecialist publications. They must also avoid the jargon of contemporary academic criticism and write in a public idiom. Finally, poets must regain the reader’s trust by candidly admitting what they don’t like as well as promoting what they like. Professional courtesy has no place in literary journalism.

4. Poets who compile anthologies—or even reading lists—should be scrupulously honest in including only poems they genuinely admire. Anthologies are poetry’s gateway to the general culture. They should not be used as pork barrels for the creative-writing trade. An art expands its audience by presenting masterpieces, not mediocrity. Anthologies should be compiled to move, delight, and instruct readers, not to flatter the writing teachers who assign books. Poet-anthologists must never trade the Muse’s property for professional favors.

5. Poetry teachers especially at the high school and undergraduate levels, should spend less time on analysis and more on performance. Poetry needs to be liberated from literary criticism. Poems should be memorized, recited, and performed. The sheer joy of the art must be emphasized. The pleasure of performance is what first attracts children to poetry, the sensual excitement of speaking and hearing the words of the poem. Performance was also the teaching technique that kept poetry vital for centuries. Maybe it also holds the key to poetry’s future.

6. Finally poets and arts administrators should use radio to expand the art’s audience. Poetry is an aural medium, and thus ideally suited to radio. A little imaginative programming at the hundreds of college and public-supported radio stations could bring poetry to millions of listeners. Some programming exists, but it is stuck mostly in the standard subculture format of living poets’ reading their own work. Mixing poetry with music on classical and jazz stations or creating innovative talk-radio formats could re-establish a direct relationship between poetry and the general audience. The history of art tells the same story over and over. As art forms develop, they establish conventions that guide creation, performance, instruction, even analysis. But eventually these conventions grow stale. They begin to stand between the art and its audience. Although much wonderful poetry is being written, the American poetry establishment is locked into a series of exhausted conventions—outmoded ways of presenting, discussing, editing, and teaching poetry. Educational institutions have codified them into a stifling bureaucratic etiquette that enervates the art. These conventions may once have made sense, but today they imprison poetry in an intellectual ghetto.

My Thoughts On Gioia’s Poetic Proposal

1. I agree that some time should be spent reading the poetry of others. It’s a poetry reading, right? So why not?

2. Again, that’s a great suggestion. I know two poets in my local area who do this well. Rich Hemmings in York, Pa. is the best promoter of poetry I’ve ever met. He often mixes music with art with poetry and isn’t afraid to take risks. I’m not just talking about his own poetry. I’m talking about the open mic readings he organizes in York and the features that he presents in those venues.

Another poetry organizer I admire, who incorporates open mic readings with discussions of dead poets, is Daniel Armstrong in Frederick, Md. He has a weekly poetry reading where every other week a featured poet is invited to read and the weeks in between are spent reading the poems of dead poets. Great idea. And it works.

3. Another good point. I do agree that poetry critics need to be candid. And it helps to have an idea of what you stand for, what you consider “good” poetry and what you won’t stand for. We all have our prejudices, but we ought to be able to back them up with reason and not wear our poetry on our sleeves.

4. Bravo! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve picked up a journal or a book of contemporary poetry hoping to find a gem only to be met with feeble attempts to impress someone who has no bearing on my enjoyment of the poem. Mediocrity should not be allowed in poetry. Period.

5. I’m OK with Gioia’s position on this one, but I cannot deny my own tendency to criticize. I am not a performance poet. It is difficult for me to perform. I read and I believe I read well. I’ve been told that I have a good reading voice, but I am not a performer. To some extent, my poetry is intended for the written page and I hope that some reader 100 years after I die can enjoy it as much as my audiences do when I read at open mics. Nevertheless, reading aloud aside - and I do agree that high school students should be met with the reading and performance of poetry with the intent to enjoy - there should be some analysis and criticism involved in the education process, particularly for poets who are learning to write.

6. Again, Gioia’s insight here awe-inspiring. But keep in mind that his essay was written in 1991, a time when most people in America had never heard of the Internet. Tim Berners-Lee had coined the phrase “World Wide Web” just one year earlier. The Internet went commercial in 1993 - after Gioia’s essay was published in The Atlantic Monthly.

Why is this important? Because when Gioia wrote and published “Can Poetry Matter?”, the radio was the dominant medium for voice transmissions. The Internet was still a science and military-industrial complex tool. The commercialization of the Internet made many things possible that before were only a pipe dream. Poetry is now popular again in ways that Gioia was talking about in his essay, but primarily right here on the Internet.

Just look around. There are countless blogs and websites that consist of published poetry. Much of it - most of it, in fact - is garbage, but it’s there. It’s being written and published by ordinary people - not by tenured professors. And some of it is good.

Then there are poetry podcasts - the Internet’s equivalent to radio. Internet radio has ten times the potential that traditional radio has. It has a broader appeal, can transcend national boundaries, and overcomes obstacles related to time as well. If I’m invited to read a poem on National Public Radio next week, there is a point at which that recording will enter an archive, and who knows when it will be revived? If I record the same poem by digital recording and upload it to a website on the same day then that recording can potentially remain in its location for the next 50 years, assuming I maintain the website for that long, and I could direct my living heirs to maintain it long afterward, which they could certainly do. This is what I mean when I say we are on the verge of a new revolution in poetry. We have the medium. Now we just need the move.