I just read the whole piece & laughed in order not to cry. But it was
funny.
On the other hand, I never even thought about trying for Poetry, even
way back when. Same with The New Yorker. I just felt my kind of writing
didn't fit there. And that's okay, too. As for the attacks on poets in
the academy, well, so what. Some good, lots bad, perhaps, as
everywhere....
But the CEO? Of poetry? hee.
Doug
On 8-Jan-06, at 11:00 PM, Mark Weiss wrote:
> 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
>
>
Douglas Barbour
11655 - 72 Avenue NW
Edmonton Ab T6G 0B9
(780) 436 3320
the words come down on
the white page a dream of snow
at mid-Atlantic.
Wayne Clifford
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