"If you are good enough your work will get published where it matters."
Haven't we all heard that? How many of us still believe it?
Judy Smith McDonough, editor, poetrynow
http://www.poetrynow.org
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-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask]
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Douglas Clark
Sent: Monday, November 06, 2000 1:57 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Obliquity in Poetry. The Arcane Art.
I would agree with DAvid Kennedy. (I am just back from a close friend's
funeral anmd have drunk an enormous amount of beer!). These poets who
criticise the current marketplace are those whose work doesnt appeal
to the editors. They are trying to create a market for their own work,
which naturally is much superior to that currently on display.
I am very often tempted to join in the catcalls because of the nil
recognition of my own work (which has just been slaughtered so badly
in the newsgroups that I dont want ever to write another poem).
But the truth is that if you are good enough your work will get
published where it matters. (EDwin Morgan told me 25 years ago that
all the editors cant be wrong when I was upset about rejection... I
should have stopped writing then). So I think that articles like
Dana Gioia's and Alan Marshfield's are basically sour grapes.
Many are called but few are chosen. Although to my personal taste
British poetry is in a dire strait at the moment. There is just
nobody. I even read Erminia's man Jamie McKendrick the other week
in hope. But this is all sour grapes because my own poetry is not
good enough but I must not let off steam about it. And only the
frivolous Cat Poems of my work have made any impact.
THank god for the beer letting me say this.
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