Both. But I'd prefer writing good poems over being published because I have a vision in my mind to satisfy. It's more important to give the world good poems rather than just being published.
It matters about as much as watching the housing market. Important if you want to be one of the gifted few who can scratch together what the economy wants and be selected for a house/pub, but it's all smoke and mirrors. I will always be my second favorite Poet, and the first is always the last one I've read. Whatever the open market reports.
TO SOME EXENT IT IS A CRAPSHOOT AND TO MORE OF AN EXTENT IT'S WHO YOU KNOW.. PERSONALLY,I PUT GREAT STORE INTO GETTING MY POEMS PUBLISHED. AI WRIITE POEMS OFTEN TO TELL THE IMAGES OF LIVES NOBODY CARES ABOUT, SUCH AS HOSPITAL WORKERS, SKATEBOARDER, WORKING PEOPLE, CITY PEOPL
POETRY IS WRITTEN AND SPSOKENTO BESHARED, TO SUSTAIN US, ENLARGE OUR SENSE OF THE WORLD.
ALSO, IT IS KIND OFSPECIOUS FOR ANDREA COHEN TO SAY DONT PUT MUCH STOE IN ACCEPANE WHEN SHE IS THE POET OF THEWEEK AND AND HAS PITHY POEMSPUBLISHED.. IF YOU ASK ME, SUCH A DISCUSSION IS A WASTE OF TIME. THERE MAY BE FEW PEOPLE SO DAMAGED BY LIFE OR MISEDUCAION, OR MESSED UO FAMILIES THAT ONY WRITE FOR THEMSELVES O THEIR OWN DRAWERS AND CANT GO BEYOND THEIR OWN UNDERWEAR. I WOUD ADDTHAT ANYTHING WRITTEN OR CLLAIMED BY THAT EGOTISTIC PONTIFICATOR AND PRACTIONER OF POMPOUS POETRY- ROBERT DUNCAN NEEDS TO UNDERSTND HE IS ONE OF A GROP OF SNEERING TIRESOME ARISTOCRATS THAT THINKS HE IS A POETWHEREVER HE FLAPS HIS LIPS AND CAPES. NOT THE TRUTH. HE IS AN ACTOR, KIND OF A THIRDRATE FLYING DUTCHMAN WHO THINKS HIS MANUFACTURED FLAMBOYANCE WILL MAKE UP FOR THE HOLES IN HIS SOU.L.
I've been writing for years and years, but I just started submitting in the past 12 months. Suddenly, I have a desire to send these poems out into the world like they are my children. I want them to find a home, a place to live, instead of hiding in a drawer or on my hard drive. They are alive in their own way and shouldn't be kept in a cage in the dark. They are wild things kept in captivity. Submitting them, I set them free.
When she said: "Don’t put too much store by acceptances and rejections. It’s a crapshoot—who gets noticed, who gets awards. The race may go to the swiftest, but the prizes can go to all sorts of talents or tastes of the moment. The poem I think is brilliant you may find mediocre. There’s so much subjectivity to all this." As a poet writing for over forty years, I can attest to the truth of that. I recently had a poetry collection of mine lose in competition to a book that I felt wasn't even true poetry. Then I had a poem of mine, that I felt was mediocre in comparison to others I was submitting, get accepted by The Rat's Ass Review and published. Go figure!
When I was younger, I wanted publication, recognition, achievement. Now, at nearly 65, I want to create. I want to explore. I want to say what I want to say. Aging is liberating!
Well, as you see from the photo, I'm not one of those "young" poets. When I was working 40 or 50 hours per week, I had little time to write. Retired now for several years. I spend most of my time reading and writing. I agree with the note by T R Poulson about workshops and critique groups. The ones I belong to are very helpful and and we make an audience for each other's poems. I submit a lot and publish little. Writing is how I spend my time these days and it is great when a poem is appreciated by others. But I know, as Andrea Cohen says, "publication is a crapshoot. "
Apologies if I’ve said this before, but I love your interviews. Seeing how you engage with the poems helps me to engage with them on a different level.
First of all, thank you so much for spotlighting Andrea Cohen! God, I love her work! You guys continue to impress me with your eclectic tastes.
For me, publication matters because audience matters. Writing is a form of communication. I get advised all the time: “You should just write for you.” I bristle at that. People, including writers, are social creatures. I crave publication because it tells me that someone (if only the editorial team for a small journal) is reading and engaging with my poems. Of course the alone time is important in the process, but for me the ultimate goal is audience. I have to beg my family and friends to read my poems, so really publication and workshops are my audience. I would add that workshops are possibly more important than publication—they offer audience in a safe environment for the process if making poems the best they can be. Publication often helps me find closure on a poem. All these things are more important to me than having publication credits in my bio, which is just icing to me.
There's an Anne Lamott quote I often go back to. She says, "I meet a lot of people who want to be published. They *kind of* want to write, but they *really* want to be published."
In difficult times, I've found myself in that mode: submitting pieces I know aren't entirely ready, submitting old work I no longer wholly stand behind in the hopes that other people might. Several of my friends are successful authors, and they've all said the same thing on this matter, both in public interviews and private conversation: Publication is essential for a person's career, but it doesn't *fix* your problems. No matter what bylines or spines bare your name, you are who you are. If I'm fixated on getting a piece Out There rather than on making sure it meets my own standards of good work, then there's a jolt or validation that I'm after that has nothing to do with publishing, career, or even with writing. And I've seen a lot of gifted but lesser-known writers fall into despair because their book deal or successful agent query didn't transform non-career-related arenas of their life. It can be hard to remember all this under capitalism, but publication makes a career, not necessarily a writer.
Both. But I'd prefer writing good poems over being published because I have a vision in my mind to satisfy. It's more important to give the world good poems rather than just being published.
It matters about as much as watching the housing market. Important if you want to be one of the gifted few who can scratch together what the economy wants and be selected for a house/pub, but it's all smoke and mirrors. I will always be my second favorite Poet, and the first is always the last one I've read. Whatever the open market reports.
TO SOME EXENT IT IS A CRAPSHOOT AND TO MORE OF AN EXTENT IT'S WHO YOU KNOW.. PERSONALLY,I PUT GREAT STORE INTO GETTING MY POEMS PUBLISHED. AI WRIITE POEMS OFTEN TO TELL THE IMAGES OF LIVES NOBODY CARES ABOUT, SUCH AS HOSPITAL WORKERS, SKATEBOARDER, WORKING PEOPLE, CITY PEOPL
POETRY IS WRITTEN AND SPSOKENTO BESHARED, TO SUSTAIN US, ENLARGE OUR SENSE OF THE WORLD.
ALSO, IT IS KIND OFSPECIOUS FOR ANDREA COHEN TO SAY DONT PUT MUCH STOE IN ACCEPANE WHEN SHE IS THE POET OF THEWEEK AND AND HAS PITHY POEMSPUBLISHED.. IF YOU ASK ME, SUCH A DISCUSSION IS A WASTE OF TIME. THERE MAY BE FEW PEOPLE SO DAMAGED BY LIFE OR MISEDUCAION, OR MESSED UO FAMILIES THAT ONY WRITE FOR THEMSELVES O THEIR OWN DRAWERS AND CANT GO BEYOND THEIR OWN UNDERWEAR. I WOUD ADDTHAT ANYTHING WRITTEN OR CLLAIMED BY THAT EGOTISTIC PONTIFICATOR AND PRACTIONER OF POMPOUS POETRY- ROBERT DUNCAN NEEDS TO UNDERSTND HE IS ONE OF A GROP OF SNEERING TIRESOME ARISTOCRATS THAT THINKS HE IS A POETWHEREVER HE FLAPS HIS LIPS AND CAPES. NOT THE TRUTH. HE IS AN ACTOR, KIND OF A THIRDRATE FLYING DUTCHMAN WHO THINKS HIS MANUFACTURED FLAMBOYANCE WILL MAKE UP FOR THE HOLES IN HIS SOU.L.
I've been writing for years and years, but I just started submitting in the past 12 months. Suddenly, I have a desire to send these poems out into the world like they are my children. I want them to find a home, a place to live, instead of hiding in a drawer or on my hard drive. They are alive in their own way and shouldn't be kept in a cage in the dark. They are wild things kept in captivity. Submitting them, I set them free.
When she said: "Don’t put too much store by acceptances and rejections. It’s a crapshoot—who gets noticed, who gets awards. The race may go to the swiftest, but the prizes can go to all sorts of talents or tastes of the moment. The poem I think is brilliant you may find mediocre. There’s so much subjectivity to all this." As a poet writing for over forty years, I can attest to the truth of that. I recently had a poetry collection of mine lose in competition to a book that I felt wasn't even true poetry. Then I had a poem of mine, that I felt was mediocre in comparison to others I was submitting, get accepted by The Rat's Ass Review and published. Go figure!
When I was younger, I wanted publication, recognition, achievement. Now, at nearly 65, I want to create. I want to explore. I want to say what I want to say. Aging is liberating!
Well, as you see from the photo, I'm not one of those "young" poets. When I was working 40 or 50 hours per week, I had little time to write. Retired now for several years. I spend most of my time reading and writing. I agree with the note by T R Poulson about workshops and critique groups. The ones I belong to are very helpful and and we make an audience for each other's poems. I submit a lot and publish little. Writing is how I spend my time these days and it is great when a poem is appreciated by others. But I know, as Andrea Cohen says, "publication is a crapshoot. "
Apologies if I’ve said this before, but I love your interviews. Seeing how you engage with the poems helps me to engage with them on a different level.
First of all, thank you so much for spotlighting Andrea Cohen! God, I love her work! You guys continue to impress me with your eclectic tastes.
For me, publication matters because audience matters. Writing is a form of communication. I get advised all the time: “You should just write for you.” I bristle at that. People, including writers, are social creatures. I crave publication because it tells me that someone (if only the editorial team for a small journal) is reading and engaging with my poems. Of course the alone time is important in the process, but for me the ultimate goal is audience. I have to beg my family and friends to read my poems, so really publication and workshops are my audience. I would add that workshops are possibly more important than publication—they offer audience in a safe environment for the process if making poems the best they can be. Publication often helps me find closure on a poem. All these things are more important to me than having publication credits in my bio, which is just icing to me.
There's an Anne Lamott quote I often go back to. She says, "I meet a lot of people who want to be published. They *kind of* want to write, but they *really* want to be published."
In difficult times, I've found myself in that mode: submitting pieces I know aren't entirely ready, submitting old work I no longer wholly stand behind in the hopes that other people might. Several of my friends are successful authors, and they've all said the same thing on this matter, both in public interviews and private conversation: Publication is essential for a person's career, but it doesn't *fix* your problems. No matter what bylines or spines bare your name, you are who you are. If I'm fixated on getting a piece Out There rather than on making sure it meets my own standards of good work, then there's a jolt or validation that I'm after that has nothing to do with publishing, career, or even with writing. And I've seen a lot of gifted but lesser-known writers fall into despair because their book deal or successful agent query didn't transform non-career-related arenas of their life. It can be hard to remember all this under capitalism, but publication makes a career, not necessarily a writer.