I've done both over the years, Kasper, though I have gone through long
periods when I didn't send anything out at all. I'm fairly selective about
the competitions I enter -- whether it's a magazine or some other
organization, it has to be a place I'd want to be associated with even if
there were no contest. But I'm not opposed to contests on principle. Both my
university press books were competition winners & there were modest reading
fees to submit those manuscripts. It's a way of subsidizing publication. Not
a perfect system, but usually not an evil one, as some claim. I've only very
occasionally sent individual poems to competitions & did so in those cases
because there seemed to be some particular appropriateness between the
sponsor & my work.
--
Joseph Duemer
Professor of Humanities
Clarkson University
[sharpsand.net]
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