Monday, June 2, 2008

Post Removed

The text of this post has been removed as requested by Bill Knott.

I hope that this situation works out for Mr. Knott.

Guest Writer: A Case for Self-publishing (Gary B. Fitzgerald)

In my opinion, a person is much better off self-publishing poetry if
they ever want to see it in book form. If one looks at the publishers of
books submitted for review to, say, Poetry Magazine, they will see
scores of small presses nobody has ever heard of. What exactly is the
difference between a small obscure outfit and a self-published book? Are
there that many fantastic editors and poetry experts out there? I doubt
it. I would guess that with so small a market and so many poets it is
only good business for the big houses to disregard anything
‘unproven’. Hell, they can barely sell what they publish now.

Few read poetry these days. You will also notice that when major awards
like the Pulitzer or Book Critics Circle Award are given out they almost
always go to the major Houses. Of course, with vested interests involved
this could be a fox/hen house type of thing. (Google ‘Silliman gang of
eight’ and read about how the big guys dominate the poetry market).
My point is that you can submit your work for twenty years, finally get
someone to publish it and then be completely ignored by the Poetry
‘establishment’ anyway or you can just publish your own work with
the same result. At least you have something you can be proud of (and
maybe sell). And don't forget that posterity thing.

________________________

This post originally appeared on Slushpile.net, January 2008.

Saturday, May 31, 2008

Poets and Free Speech


"In our free speech they say/ There is protest."

-----------Mark Yakich, The Importance of Peeling Potatoes in Ukraine
-------------(Poetry collection, Penguin, April 2008)

_______________________________________

(Disclosure: I found this quote in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers, page 12.)

Guest Poet: AT THE "FEDERAL CENSORSHIP AND THE ARTS" SYMPOSIUM (Bill Knott)

Just as the Nazis never proscribed Rilke
(he was no Expressionist, no Degenerate,
no Art-Bolshevik), so most of us poets
are thought no threat by those in authority—

Halfhass, for instance, his books won't get banned:
his Rilkemanqué wins awards, his "spiritual
progress" and "earned words" (—to paraphrase Wilde,
his genius gives good guru Po-Biz style while

his talent brooks those so serious ergo poems)—
what might please our fuehrers even more is
his patriot's part in The American Poetry Series.

Better silence than that? Better to hide, to write
for one's cabinet? (To paraphrase Benn,
the aristocratic form of publication.)


__________________________________________________________


[Poet's] Note: This poem was deleted from my collected comic poems by the publisher, BOA, whose chief fund-raiser at the time was Robert Hass. . . .

I've often wondered if the BOA editors censored this poem on their own
initiative, or whether they were ordered to do so by Hass.


__________________________________________________________

Admin note: I have "propagated" this poem as per Bill Knott's statement to readers:

"ALL MY POETRY, EVERY POEM I'VE WRITTEN SINCE 1960, IS POSTED [ON MY SITE] FOR OPEN ACCESS, PERUSAL AND PROPAGATION: YOU HAVE MY THANKS TO PLEASE COPY/DISTRIBUTE WHATEVER YOU LIKE."


Poem copyright Bill Knott, August 2007

Friday, May 30, 2008

Thought Policing on Forums


"Thought policing" (taken from George Orwell's novel 1984) on forums occurs when

...Someone trolls the forums looking for posts that do not align with their political, religious, or moral values. When they find a post that they do not agree with, they post messages in that post to incite people to bring attention to that post to get it locked or deleted.

This phenomenon is widespread in forums and motives can vary, but what they accomplish is to stifle freedom of speech and open and honest discussions on topics they feel could be a threat.

--From Wikipedia

Poets.net allows and even encourages differing viewpoints.

1984 in 2008?


One broken windmill, so many sheep.

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