Well, I agree with you, Mark, too. I was thinking of magazines. Books
are, as you say, different animals, & I too have made suggestions (as
you also say, if you have accepted the book, then the author has the
final say), trying to make the book a better example of what it seems
to be.
I suspect I also agree with you that reading something on the page is
deeper in some way than reading on screen, but I'm not longer so sure
of that. As I do read a lot on screen (I do not print off much).
As to translations, there I'll take you expert (as translator) advice.
It sounds intuitively 'right.'
Doug
On 23-Apr-05, at 10:08 AM, Mark Weiss wrote:
> I'm what Steve's calling an active editor, but I hope tactful. I don't
> accept a book manuscript unless I can live with it as is, and I let
> authors know that there's no gun to their heads to make changes. But
> I'll fight, explain, persuade to get my suggestions listened to, if
> not accepted. Usually the author understands my concern about this or
> that and comes up with a better solution. In almost every case we both
> wind up feeling that the book is the better for the process, and it's
> led to some enduring friendships.
>
> Which doesn't mean that the path is without stones. I grumble about
> suggestions for my own work, and so do a lot of those I edit. The
> question is what one does with the suggestions the next morning. And
> the assumption is that the poem and the book are independent objects
> and not extensions of one's ego.
>
> They're not the extension of my ego as editor, either. For one thing,
> I never edit in the direction of making the poem or book read like
> something of mine--it's rather a matter of helping it read more
> consistently like itself. And of course if the poet says no to a
> suggestion and won't budge or come up with an alternative that's the
> end of it--published as is.
>
> When I ask a translator to do work for me I always make clear that
> I'll be editing actively. I don't know how anybody manages to produce
> decent translations consistently without editing, but translations are
> almost never edited, and most translations in print are pretty ghastly
> as a result.
>
> I tend to like best books in which the poet is creating something new
> to him/her, and sometimes a midwife can be helpful. My own work has
> been enormously helped by the suggestions of others.
>
> All of that said, when I did a magazine I rarely made suggestions
> except to very close friends. I simply didn't and don't see magazine
> publication as demanding the same degree of finish as a book.
>
> Which leads back to internet publication. I feel absolutely free to
> submit for print publication anything that hasn't been in print,
> regardless of prior appearance on the web, unless the print editor
> says otherwise. And I don't trouble the editor by informing him/her
> unless asked. The only exception to this is ebooks--always
> acknowledged, never republished on paper without permission. My
> reasoning is that both the editor and I have gone through significant
> labor and agony over the text, which is final--"sacred"--in the same
> sense that a book on paper strives to be. Which doesn't of course mean
> that I'll never tinker with it again.
>
> The ebook also invites downloading onto hard copy, and it's in hard
> copy, whether as a printed book or a download, that I want my work
> read. Ezines can be wonderful things, but they don't invite the slow
> contemplation of text in the way that the object held in one's hand
> does--quite the opposite.
>
> Web editors display a very wide range of opinions about all this.
> Recently I was asked for a significant contribution of translations
> for a website the nature of which is still to be determined--it may
> turn out to be nothing more than a blog. The author of the originals
> asked me to go along with what was asked because he likes the editor.
> The restrictions were that poems that had appeared in print were fine,
> but not poems that had appeared elsewhere on the internet.
>
> Mark
>
Douglas Barbour
Department of English
University of Alberta
Edmonton Alberta T6G 2E5 Canada
(780) 436 3320
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm
I don’t need to
hold back here
in the union
of forms
Charles Olson
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