Organizing your writing life

LET'S BE HONEST... Over the last week or so, the poetry blogosphere has been ripe with folk griping about the "cultural elite" in the poetry world. If you are a poet with a blog, know too many poets, ever had a friend/acquaintance select your work for publication, edit a lit mag or operate a small press -- you are part of the cultural elite and you should be ashamed of yourself. Reb Livingston, editor of No Tell Motel and its press, was taken to task for using her "wealth" to publish all her friends. All of this elicits a big whatever from me. Let's be honest about this: friends are going to publish friends. It's been happening since the beginning of time and will continue. Dana Goodyear will probably have another four or five poems in The New Yorker when all is said and done. My advice: make more friends.

If an editor decides to publish a friend or acquaintance's work, it shouldn't be poetry as pity fuck. I hope that an editor I know, or who I've met in blogland, would never publish me out of some feeling of obligation. If the work is not up to snuff, don't publish it. I've been friends with Tania Rochelle, the poetry editor of The Chattahoochee Review, for a number of years, and she hasn't published anything of mine. Nor has Dan Veach, editor of Atlanta Review, despite the fact that I sit on the community board of Poetry Atlanta, which created the journal. Am I bitter about this? I could be, but I'm not. Both Tania and Dan have specific ideas of what they want a poem to be, and mine just don't fall into that category. Real friends won't publish you out of pity; they'll tell you to write better shit and get back to them. Having read the majority of No Tell Press' books, I can safely say that Reb isn't publishing subpar work. She's a tough cookie who knows what she likes and if she doesn't, she'll reject it. I have the emails to prove it. No Tell is publishing challenging work by good poets. Period. And if they happen to be Reb's friends, good for her. We should all be so lucky.

In another instance, the wonderful poet Peter Pereira selected some of my poems for an upcoming edition of In Posse Review. It's no secret (since we both blasted it across our blogs and via emails to anyone who might be coming to AWP), that I booked Peter as a featured poet at my Poetry at Portfolio Center series while he was in town for AWP. Peter had selected my poems before we ever actually met, and I know he would have rejected my work if it wasn't strong enough. You do put some of your integrity on the line by who you choose to publish, so I'm honored that Peter thought my work was worthy.

Here's another admission: Most of the work I've had published in zines and journals over the last two years has been solicited. I know, I know...the horror. Some of it has been from editors I know, some from editors I've never met who read my work elsewhere. I guess I really am part of the cultural elite now -- I don't even have to submit my work anymore. But I do. I still enter a contest every now and then and I was recently rejected by Poetry. Guess I haven't quite worked my way to the top of the elite food chain just yet.

Post AWP, there has also been a call for different kind of conference...something for those who work outside academia or operate indie or micro presses and online zines. I wholly support this. AWP is academic-based, which is fine, but there are so many independent presses and mags not affiliated with education these days, there should be room for a conference where issues of funding, publishing, publicity, etc. could be hashed out on a smaller scale. The final count of folks at AWP in Atlanta was 5,400. That's about 2,400 too many for me. I've been spoiled by the Austin Poetry Festival, which attracts a thousand or so folks and it's laid back atmosphere of readings, slams and workshops. Lulled into elitism again. Sigh.

Over the weekend I was talking to a good poet friend of mine and we got into a debate about a well-known poet accused of publishing his/her friends, or allowing it to happen over a number of years. My friend said the poet in question was a great poet and a very nice person, which I don't doubt. My beef is that this person took money for contests, then tried to pretend there wasn't an agenda already laid out for a friend (or friend of a friend) to receive publication. Just be upfront about it, for fucks sake. Don't take a poor poets $25 entry fee so you can raise enough dough to publish your friend's book. That's just theft. Hold an open reading period, get some grants, or invest your own money. Better yet, spend hardly any money and do print-on-demand publishing and make the poet get off his/her ass and do some publicity. Stop worrying about being a "careerist" and get your poetry to readers.

When you get right down to it, the whole debate over publishing friends and elitism in poetry is another storm in a teacup. I've said it before, but poetry is the niche-est of niche markets. Some poets are never going to feel like they are getting the attention they think they deserve. So they'll just tear down someone else to make themselves feel better and try to pass blame for their own lack of moxie. Less bitching, more writing.

Oh, and to add insult to those I've probably already insulted, I'm a guest blogger over at VRZHU Press' fab site today (and take note of the two new collections forthcoming from this exciting new indie press). I've written of my secret love for Yoko Ono and reviewed her new album, Yes, I'm A Witch. Thanks, Dan, for asking me to contribute. My elitism knows no bounds.