To answer your question, Bob, it's possible that "good" and "bad"
might become relevant terms for me in the future, even arbitrating
terms. Anything's possible. If I form a publishing company, it will
be on a very small scale, and as I can afford to, or nearly afford to,
one way or another. I do not anticipate that it will receive regular
funding of any kind, from either public or private funds, except my
own if and when I can.

I imagine that I will publish what I want most to publish at that
time. There is a whole range of reasons why I might want it. For
example, I can think of a writer in Ireland who has been writing for
30 years and has never published a book. There isn't really a niche
for this artist in Ireland. It's not that I think the writing is
"good" or "the best" but that I think it is alive and unique and the
poetry scene would be richer to have it. I might want to articulate a
tradition of alien poetry here in America. I could see a scenario
where I might publish a book because I think it might be able to cover
its costs. Thinking of my own work, I might publish something in book
form which has been published electronically, but not in print. I
might publish for reasons of solidarity or friendship. There are lots
of reasons why I might publish what I might publish, given that I ever
achieve this dream.

I'd be pleasing myself I hope, and enjoying it. If I felt my own
taste and desire were insufficient, I probably would cease publishing,
or invite others on board. If publishing poetry became a weighty
responsibility, riven with anxiety about whether I was publishing the
best and whether my taste was sufficient and whether great poets were
slipping my capacious or meagre net, well, I'd have to throw it in.
Right now you have me fretting about my house not being the best, just
as good as I could do at the time, and my daughters being the best
(but is that just because I'm their mother?), and whether I should be
making more of an effort to be a "good" poet just like I make an
effort to be a good person and whether it's reprehensible to be a
good-enough poet or if that just goes for mothers, and if I can't be
the best or even good or even good enough then is it worth doing at
all? Hell yes.

In a field as rich and various as poetry, I don't feel the anxieties
you raise are pertinent, at least not to my understanding of it. I'm
not going to go into a flower shop, I hope, and agonize over whether I
prefer orchids or roses today: which is the best flower? They're both
pretty good and I'd be lucky to walk out of there with either so I
might choose by mood, by smell, by how much money I have, by the
quality of sunshine that day. And when I'm planting my garden I'll be
going by what I can do, the colours I love, and the personalities of
some flowers. Now, I've done my Chauncy Gardiner bit on this subject.
 Please do not ask me any more questions. I feel like a seminarian.
Good bye.

Mairead






On 8/25/05, Robert Heffernan <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Mairead:
>
> > I'm not an editor though I have plans to start a press representing
> > poets working outside their country of birth and/or national tradition
> > (hey guess what: just like me!). When I do, I don't know if "good" or
> > "bad" will be the relevant terms.
>
> If "good" and "bad" were then to become relevant, would you be nervous
> of it? Would it frighten you to have to arbitrate between different
> manuscripts and choose those that you should publish? Would you fear
> that you might turn down poets of great merit in favour of poets of
> less merit because of the failings of your personal taste? If not,
> would you feel that your personal taste is enough? Are considerations
> of merit even needed? Is it enough to merely publish as much of
> anything as you possibly can, to give others the chance to read it?
>
> Even as I type this I can see the huge advantages in the final
> approach (publish as much as you can, let others decide). But is it
> worth loosing the chance to publish much dross to publish one thing
> that is spectacular?
>
> > Two final things: one: your new in-between half-way-house blog which
> > you were "a little hesitant" and "a little nervous" about announcing.
> > Hesitation and caution are useful values in the arts as in other
> > things. This second blog serves a different function to your other
> > blog. The work and the thoughts may be unfinished. Is it "bad" or
> > "good" or just "writing"? You're publishing it, remember.
>
> My reason for setting up the blog was to try and help myself sort
> through my own thoughts on "good" and "bad" as applied to my own
> poetry. To see these terns mean anything to me at all. To see what
> ways my art should change if they do. So, it must be said, that at
> present what I have published there is "just writing" which I fear may
> be "bad" but can't say for certain.
>
> > I saw "Meet the Fockers" last night: if the Robert De Niro
> > character was a poet, I think "improvement of the art" might work for
> > him.
>
> I laughed out loud at that one. :)
> I don't think I'm intimidating enough to be Robert DeNiro in that
> movie. I'm too small and my posture is very bad!
>
> Thank you for your replies (everybody).
> I apologise for my own replies, composed almost entirely of questions.
>
> Bob
>