« Go | Main | »

Keep It To Yourselves
July 1, 2007    File under: Editing , Poetry & Poetics

You've got to read this.

I like Steve's humor in this matter, though I confess I have mixed feelings about posting drafts on one's blog, unless they're set to expire. As en editor of both print and online journals, I confess that a routine frustration has been the appearance of poems in my box by poets who have long ago posted them on their own rave sites. As an editor of an electronic journal, I find this interferes seriously with the creation of the issue I want, as search engines recognize the journal's posting and the rave site equally, effectively devaluing the electronic journal's work. As an editor of a print journal, I have less of a problem, though I would want to know that a poet who had previously posted the poem would take down the drafts from the site, so the reading traffic might be encouraged toward the journal.

Steve's himself the editor of a print journal and he surely knows how hard it is to keep such efforts afloat financially. One gets a little testy, perhaps unreasonably, when it appears that one's work to gather what one believes is a kind of exclusive content has been compromised.

As a writer, I value the opportunity the blog affords, but I'm increasingly cautious of it, as any reader of this blog will know. More and more the blog seems to present avenues for trouble at work, with students, colleagues, would-be enemies. I guess more and more I prefer to keep my poems in quieter settings.

In any case, read Steve's post. I enjoyed it. Laughed out loud.

Posted by Jake Adam York at July 1, 2007 8:10 AM



COMMENTS

Thanks for the kind words, Jake. My stance on previous "publication" of poems as an editor at this point is the standard "If another editor has selected the poem for publication, you can't submit it" plus "If I can Google your poem, you can't submit it." That covers the bases that concern me.

And yes, I plowed several hundred dollars of my own money into the Muse over the last couple years--if I thought a few of the poems appearing online were taking revenues away from the journal, I'd be pretty vocal about it. I accepted work from a couple people when it had already appeared online without my knowledge, and though I chastised them for it, I don't think they meant any duplicity, and I don't think it was a major negative for the journal. I also actively solicited at least a couple poems that I knew appeared online at the time I solicited them.

Posted by: Steve S at July 1, 2007 1:17 PM




Steve,

Right on. I think to say "If I can Google your poem, you can't submit it." That about covers it.

Though the idea of policing readings of a poem... I suspect all of us read a poem before it's ready to go out, so take it easy on us.

J

Posted by: Jake at July 2, 2007 12:22 PM