To add to what Rebecca has said, calling Copper Canyon powerful I think
begs the question of what we mean by power in the context of US poetry. Do
powerful presses make their authors famous, or more employable in the
academic world, or more likely to get grants? The latter two marginally, at
best, the first scarcely. Worse, they don't increase one's audience much.
Poetry has become a beggar's banquet--we fight over crumbs.
Mark
At 12:12 AM 1/9/2006 -0500, you wrote:
>---- Original message ----
> >Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2006 22:34:22 -0500
> >From: Kenneth Wolman <[log in to unmask]>
> >Subject: Re: Money and poetry
>
> > Richard Nash, the publisher of the fiercely independent Brooklyn-based
> > Soft Skull Press, is about to scale back his extensive poetry list,
> > most of which he's lost money on.
> >.I rather agree with it from very impure motives. The "unconnected" poet
> >is going to get nowhere with contests, with the once-small but now
> >powerful presses like Copper Canyon and BOA, and with obvious coteries
> >of which he or she is not a part.
>
>An interesting post, Ken, but I have a cold, so I'm just replying to these
>few bits.
>You mention Copper Canyon, which publishes my work, among others, but it
>has become a more 'powerful' press, as has BOA, with the disappearance of
>poetry publishing by the giant publishing houses. But not without the same
>old
>and some new financial pressures, which has meant a cutting back on the list,
>so in some cases, a previously published poet is cut loose. The same thing
>has
>happened at BOA in the last couple of years, so a number of editors and
>publishers have had to scale back as Richard Nash has, though none of them
>are
>happy about it, and wondering over alternatives.
>
> > I don't disagree with the Internet
> >perspective but it too has become less an Medieval fair than a set of
> >selective little boutiques where you have to divine the reigning
> >prejudices to get in. A good friend who is quite published in print and
> >online can't crack either publication calling itself Drunken Boat.
>
>Ah, I'd guess of these Drunken Boats is mine, but wasn't aware that your
>friend
>was trying to crack it. I had to scale back too, mostly because of time
>pressures,
>not being able to edit one issue, do the html for another, an editor who'd
>gone
>on elsewhere, and my work here, etc, for the summer issue, and have shifted
>somewhat to these features, like the Latvian feature which another editor put
>together over two years. Even though it says on the submissions page that we
>don't take unsolicited submissions only queries, most of the issues are
>sent to
>me, like the interview with Aliki Barnstone by an unknown writer. So
>there's not
>a particular taste or prejudice, the work we've published is all over the
>place.
>And I haven't for months gotten any submissions out of the blue of someone
>trying to crack the boat, perhaps because the email address was being
>routinely
>spammed to death. So I changed it recently, so perhaps your friend
>should try
>again,
>
>best,
>
>Rebecca
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