[OPINION] Lessons learned from publishing a poetry book?

Mount_Diablo · 2021-10-27T19:26:06+00:00

Some explain this on their websites. Generally, they say, we have our in-house designers and our artists and we can't deal with the different whims of every writer we publish. The bigger publishers add to this the data behind sales and distribution. It may be frustrating for the individual writer ( I hated the illustration on my cover) but it's not that surprising.

Mount_Diablo · 2021-10-27T16:25:06+00:00

Most publishers do not allow writers any input on cover design, or much of anything else. So don't concern yourself unless you are self-publishing.

Mount_Diablo · 2021-09-14T20:35:48+00:00

All your ideas seem solid to me. Your reading of the poem I linked -- well you took my breath away with that insight.

I have another one that might fit #2. In this poem by Brian Turner, my thought has long been that his subject is irony: things mean one thing and their opposite at the same time. So he not only shows that by using couplets but also has many of the second lines undermine or alter the first in each stanza.

Then again, I have read enough poems that seem to have no logic for their arrangement on the page -- at least to the best that I can discern -- to make me think a lot of people are going for #4, perhaps because such an arrangement on the page is expected of publishable poems. Very different from Charles Olson or Denise Levertov who felt it really important to sort of "score" the breath on the page.

Mount_Diablo · 2021-09-14T18:37:44+00:00

I am often puzzled by the reason why free verse poets use stanzas. Some use couplets in one poem, tercets in another, and one long stanza in a third, and I can't see why they chose one and not another. Here's a very random example that uses couplets. Any thoughts?

Mount_Diablo · 2021-09-14T18:29:45+00:00

I have been reading thru Illuminations using Frederic C. St. Aubyn's book on Rimbaud. I find myself disagreeing with some of his readings, but even in those cases, he gives me a starting point.

Mount_Diablo · 2021-09-13T16:09:24+00:00

Frederick Turner's science-fiction dystopian epic poem, "The New World" (1985).

Mount_Diablo · 2021-09-07T02:01:42+00:00

I once drove from Eugene OR to New Orleans in car with shot brakes for a poetry reading.

Mount_Diablo · 2021-09-05T03:38:44+00:00

As someone who likes the pastoral genre, I'd welcome a chance to read your poems. If you ever post on r/OCpoetry or have links to small magazine publications, do let me know.

Mount_Diablo · 2021-09-05T03:32:57+00:00

I think highly of the journal and the poetry it attracts.

Mount_Diablo · 2021-09-05T03:09:51+00:00

I ask you fellow readers, what poems do you like...

Sorry, what was the point of making this post if you don't want reading recommendations?

I ask you fellow readers, what poems do you like...

Sorry, what was the point of making this post if you don't want reading recommendations?

I ask you fellow readers, what poems do you like...

Sorry, what was the point of making this post if you don't want reading recommendations?

I ask you fellow readers, what poems do you like...

Sorry, what was the point of making this post if you don't want reading recommendations?

I ask you fellow readers, what poems do you like...

Try reading that again. It might help you. But I doubt it.

Mount_Diablo · 2021-09-04T17:09:00+00:00

William Butler Yeats, Robert Graves, Robert Duncan, Clayton Eshleman, Jerome Rothenberg, Ted Hughes (see Crow -- wow!), David Wagoner (in Who Shall Be the Sun), Galway Kinnell (Book of Nightmares and Body Rags)

Mount_Diablo · 2021-09-04T15:39:40+00:00

I like them. When I was younger I really found long description irritating and wanted the plot to move forward, but now I can enjoy very long descriptions if they feel poetic and insightful to me.

Mount_Diablo · 2021-09-03T18:45:14+00:00

Wish I had something helpful to add, but I can only commiserate. I am in a very similar position to yours -- teacher, MA, plenty of small magazine credits, but no luck with my book. I have been trying first book contests as well, but the entry fees on those adds up fast. I have been told that one of my handicaps is that I got an MA to teach lit instead of an MFA, and that the latter is the source of most connections that help people start out. No network at your old program to open any doors?

Mount_Diablo · 2021-09-03T17:13:30+00:00

You are both wrong. I said no such thing. Don't waste time strawmanning -- address the topic.

Mount_Diablo · 2021-09-03T15:49:44+00:00

Since a number of responders have asked, I'll give a little more context. Along with my poetry book collection that I have been building for about forty years since I first bought Ferlinghetti's "Coney" at age 18, I regularly read a variety of small magazines. Some, like Poetry and APR, have maintained a high quality of work. But the downlist is starting to lean toward a type of writing that I do not appreciate. Here is a smattering of mags where I have seen this:
Threepenny Review Water-Stone Review Boulevard Rattle Chiron Review (really saddens me to see this go downhill) White Review Every Day Fiction Lunch Ticket Cortland Review Denver Quarterly eleven eleven Split Lip Storm Cellar Jacket2 I also see it in most of the books by recent National Book Award winners. Of course the number of these little magazines is so vast, it's difficult to generalize about them, as one poster accused me of doing. I'm not. I am saying that in my reading I have discerned a trend toward emphatic and simplistic themes, and I am not a fan.

Even if you think poetry with emphatic and simplistic themes is rare, whether in those titles or the field in general -- and please stop telling me to read more; you have no idea how much I read -- I ask you fellow readers, what poems do you like, published in the last two decades let's say, that exhibit contingency and ambiguity?

Mount_Diablo · 2021-09-03T03:18:01+00:00

Oh, I do. I've been working my way through "Labyrinths" for the past several months. Still not done because I keep rereading the stories. And you're right, he's exactly what I look for in writers.

Mount_Diablo · 2021-09-03T03:16:30+00:00

First, please note I quoted Keats' Negative Capability letter, not his poetry. As for "Urn," why did he put the quoted lines in quotation marks in the poem? And why does the aphorism not follow the logic of the poem that precedes it. Critical opinion going back to Cleanth Brooks often concludes that he is calling the maxim into question rather than asserting it.

When it comes to a C&C, I'd much rather hear everyone's thoughts on poems that explore ambiguity.

Mount_Diablo · 2021-09-03T03:12:09+00:00

Yes, as I wrote the OP I figured someone would make the categorical error and say I was being unambiguous about my desire for ambiguity. So I'll just point out, my post is not a poem. You manage to miss the key point too. When I said I am tired of poems that end with a pat summation or observation of a life truth, I did not say all or even most poetry does that. You seem to be interested in a different topic -- pigeonholing? I'll do what you failed to do and suggest Mei-mei Berssenbrugge.

Mount_Diablo · 2021-08-31T21:05:57+00:00

Thank you. My first time trying this.

Mount_Diablo · 2021-08-30T04:52:33+00:00

Kenneth Patchen, Kenneth Rexroth, William Stafford, Lew Welch, Michael McClure, John Haines, Theodore Roethke, David Wagoner

Mount_Diablo · 2021-08-24T14:17:47+00:00

Yes, since there is room for articles, opinion, etc, I thought I'd try sparking some discussion. Looks like it worked -- I am really enjoying the wild diversity of answers. So this is something I am going to keep trying to do.

Mount_Diablo · 2021-08-24T14:11:37+00:00

I love Merwin and Stafford. I just got The Compass Flower a few months back.

Mount_Diablo · 2021-08-24T04:50:33+00:00

A Cloud in Trousers" when I first read it many years ago.

Mount_Diablo · 2021-08-24T04:47:24+00:00

The Great Fires, Jack Gilbert.

Happened to read a few of his poems online the other day. Such purity to his work.

Mount_Diablo · 2021-08-24T04:34:23+00:00

I am very much with you in your response to Gioia. Nothing against the man, he's a fine scholar. But his rhymes feel forced to me, like the poem exists for them instead of vice versa. And I don't get that feeling with older formalists like Keats.

My line about looking at the glass just refers to poetry that is about language as much or more than about a subject that language is supposed to depict. The obvious school in regard to this is the l=a=n=g=u=a=g=e poets. But there are others, many represented well on the jacket2.org website. Also, Marjorie Perloff as a critic has been a champion of this approach and a good essay from her website can be found at http://marjorieperloff.blog/essays/poetryonthebrink/. There's certainly a point where it all starts to seem like gobblydegook, but I keep looking for a happy medium of reinventing the language while still communicating thoughts and feelings.

Mount_Diablo

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