Announcements are vital, I agree, and an email-based list is a perfect vehicle for announcements,
so why should anyone feel bad about making them?
But this underlines my point that commerce cannot - or certainly should not - be separated from
poetry when it comes to publishing. If no one wants to buy a book, or read a book, why bother
publishing it in the first place? If you support the idea of telling people about publications, then
you must agree that commerce and poetry are linked. Which is as it should be. I don't know
enough about publishing poetry to claim that some publishers do okay out of it. I know the
smaller presses need subsidies to survive, but that doesn't mean they don't say to themselves
when an mss arrives on their desk: 'Who will buy this?'
I think there's a tradition of preciousness about poetry publishing which allows people who insist
on following that tradition to slam those who would like to see poetry more widely read. Which is a
ludicrous thing to do, under the circumstances, and can only lead to incestuous publishing with a
tiny readership that - quit naturally - excludes the possibility of commerce.
However, I too would like to see more discussions about poetry on this list. By which I mean,
discussions about actual poems or poets. Not about the world of poetry, as above.
|