Mslexia, the quarterly for women writers, which has a high reputation and
not just amongst women, regularly does violence to the original poems it
publishes.
This is because the entire content of the mag, articles (which are
excellent), reviews etc, and short stories appear in column format (like
newsprint -- what's the technical term for that?), and poems are simply
inserted into similar columns and the lines allowed to wrap where they will.
Yes, I have written to complain about this, as have other poets I know of,
but so far to no avail.
Some years ago I judged a local poetry competition. When it came to the
prizegiving, one of the organisers retyped and made copies of the winning
poems, so that the audience could see them. Only, she centred the lot. When
I pointed out that the original left-justification formed part of the poem
and the poet's intention, she snapped that this was how she liked poetry set
out. She simply could not see that she had no right to tamper with a poet's
layout. Seems to me there's something veering towards a moral point there.
joanna
----- Original Message -----
From: "Roger Day" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, June 25, 2007 12:11 PM
Subject: Re: up there
> Tis there now with the correct indentations. It's stuff like this I
> need to know. Even the most unloved piece needs some attention.
>
> Nothing to do with this piece, but once upon a time, many years ago, a
> piece of Prynnes was presented to Britpo sans indentation, for fun,
> for exercise - the usual one being can you guess the line-endings?
> It's usually a harmless piece of fun, serious play, but Keston
> Sutherland retorted that the act of removing the indentation removed
> the morals of the piece. I occasionally ponder that gnomic message: do
> morals exist in the shape of a poem? if so does said act of
> "vandalism" effect the "morals" of a poem? Or was Keston's rebarbative
> statement just a piece of high-blown rhetoric designed to avoid a
> standard analysis tool? Who knows. And why do I remember such things
> ...
>
> Roger
>
> On 6/25/07, Caleb Cluff <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> Yes Roger - the unfortunately titled Ice Pool was laid out differently,
>> but I'm happy to have it stored like this, and revealed as a rather
>> pathetic piece of work... Long live the left margin...
>>
>> caleb
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Poetryetc: poetry and poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
>> Behalf Of Patrick McManus
>> Sent: Monday, 25 June 2007 5:03 PM
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: up there
>>
>> simple (but simplistically stylish
>> that's our Roger
>> unlike myself 'dumbed-down or limited for the sake of 'comprehension'
>> cheers Patrick -a week of rain forecast building myself into a frenzy
>> for
>> the Wednesday snapperings
>> P silver slivverer P
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Poetryetc: poetry and poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
>> Behalf Of kasper salonen
>> Sent: 25 June 2007 00:04
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: up there
>>
>> woah. and I made it in for one of them. surely a snap, & not of great
>> quality; I've been editing the poem since.
>> looks great though, I wouldn't really want it any other way than this
>> simple (but simplistically stylish) layout
>>
>> KS
>>
>> On 24/06/07, Roger Day <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> > http://www.poetryetc.org/
>> >
>> > are some poems. It's some pretty basic stuff. It's all in
>> black-and-white.
>> >
>> > Please check yr stuff, and get back to me on errors and formatting.
>> > Max in particular - yr stuff regularly comes to me with the odd
>> > character untranslated.
>> >
>> > I can't guarantee to get the format exactly right - best effort rules
>> > here - but I'll try my best. My stuff relies on style-sheets, so if
>> > you're using Netscape Navigator 1, you might have some issues. I'm
>> > loath to go back too far.
>> >
>> > TODO:
>> > Alphabetise the poetry by author for each week
>> > create an index of poems by poet. I'm not too sure how this will look
>> > in practice. I'll think of something.
>> >
>> > --
>> > My Stuff: http://www.badstep.net/
>> > "In peace, sons bury their fathers. In war, fathers bury their sons."
>> > Roman Proverb
>> >
>>
>>
>> --
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>> 11:08
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
> --
> My Stuff: http://www.badstep.net/
> "In peace, sons bury their fathers. In war, fathers bury their sons."
> Roman Proverb
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