> Let me turn this around and ask in what circumstances you would want to
> submit material that had been previously published?
I don't think it can be turned around that way. In fact, my original point
didn't assume that one wanted to submit previously published material: quite
the contrary, it assumed that one did not want to submit previously published
material and therefore wanted to clarify whether things which have been
propagated only on line were to be considered in the category "previously
published" and therefore shouldn't be submitted.
In retrospect, the question seems more complicated than I had thought.
Consider the following possible methods of on line distribution of a poem:
1) emailing it backchannel to a list of correspondents
2) emailing it to a JISC-like mailing list where it is kept in an archive
which is not indexed by Google and other search engines but can be
read by anyone who has the archive's password.
3) emailing it to a list like the above, but one with an archive
open to anyone to read.
4) posting it on a personal web site which is not primarily a literary
web site.
5) posting it on a personal literary web site which is devoted only
to one's own poetry.
6) posting it on a poetry depository like poemhunter.com.
7) having it accepted for inclusion on an established poetry web site,
where it remains available for anyone to read.
8) having had it accepted for inclusion on an established poetry
web site which has been taken off line and is no longer available
to anyone via the internet.
Which are publication? Surely most people would say that 1) is not. But if
1) is not, then 2) probably isn't either: in both cases the poem's access
remains private. 3) 4) 5) and 6) seem to me capable of being argued either
way, 7) seems arguably to be publication, and 8) I think is very muddy. If on
line "publication" were only 7) the question might be easy to settle, but in
fact 7) isn't even clearly the standard. I'm sure that many people reading
this, like myself, have done all of the above.
> Compare poetry publication with academic journals. These too exist
> in print and virtual form. There is no intrinsic prestige issue
> related to themedium, prestige being vested in the peers doing the
> peer review.
Having spent many years in the academic world in a previous incarnation, I
didn't find this to be at all true. In my experience, the calculus "scholarly
reputation = pages published x prestige of venue" was strict and universal.
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Jon Corelis [log in to unmask]
www.geocities.com/joncpoetics
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