It's nice that someone besides me feels like Exile on Main Street. I am SO
outside the world of poetry that I'd accept an offer to read at Northern
State Prison south of Newark, as long as I could leave afterwards. No
joke...guys doing time are reputed to be really good audiences, at least for
some things.
Jersey is full of small presses. I discovered this at a writers' conference
in Long Branch last October. Renee Ashley, who WAS on this list, was one of
the people giving workshops; and she also gave individual attention. Even
if you didn't like it:-). She ripped a poem of mine to shreds and left a
good poem.
There were panels with people who run small presses in Jersey. Nobody
talked Contest Contest Contest. This ran against the message I'd gotten
years before: send your book MS to a contest. Why? Because that's where
the connections are? No clue. But a lot of people will do chapbooks.
Limited run, you go to readings hustle your own work.
Then I saw the Poetry Foundation ad for the BIG competition. As I said...a
very strange set-up. First book by someone over 50. A very large prize.
Printing and distribution and publicity. I don't write what I think of as
Poetry Magazine poems, in case nobody noticed. I don't even write Foetry
poems. So my chances of even finishing near the top are not good. But who
can resist no entry fee and a $10K prize?
I guess there is a trade, sad to say: you want a book or you want a
publicity tour? I'll throw the little guy out of the chariot, the one
saying "Remember, thou art mortal" in exchange for paper pages with my name
on them.
Ken
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