“How do you get published?” Someone asked.
“You submit.”
That’s the bottom line. It’s easy to say but it takes just as much discipline to send out a poem as to write one. (Much of the time, writing is easier than sending.) I have failed this particular new year resolution time and again; failed to submit even just once a month. What’s the problem? Submission is not poetry. It is work of the tedious kind: reading requirements, guidelines, following directions, licking stamps, etc. And when the rejection letters come in, they reaffirm my reason for not submitting.
Occasionally I get excited when the ad says contest winner gets to give a reading. I am a sucker for such privilege. It gets me going and dreaming a little. It’s good to dream.
Image taken from: pcmailingservices.com
Submitting poetry is a job. Years ago I made a “program” of it. I read Poetry Flash and other sources to find opportunities. I kept filing system for which poem was sent where and when, which was accepted and so forth. It was work, plain and simple. The essential problem was finding a match between what a publication said they wanted and what you had that was appropriate. The secondary problem was pragmatics. There was no pay for the poem, once it was accepted. The readership of most were quite small, so building a reputation was not in the cards, especially if the magazine was in a city far, far away. And so one questions the “job.” Building a publication record, a portfolio, if you will, is what it became for me. These days I send things off to those who ask for things. But that happens only occasionally. In sum, I do not pursue this course now a days. I’d rather write, revise, practice and read to audiences. Stick to the fun stuff. That’s what I am doing, more or less.
More and more–especially considering the possibilities available on the internet–people are publishing themselves. Sometimes these books are taken up by the large publishing companies, not always. The notion of “vanity” press seems to be fading. Do the tyrannical publishing companies control the dissemination of information (poetry is information, “news that stays news”)or is there another way? The N.Y. Times had a famous slogan: “All the news that’s fit to print.” Who decides what’s “fit”? Do you “submit” your blog to anyone? (I am about to press a button that says “Submit Comment.”)
Submit! I’ve always been uncomfortable with it – submit, submission – to surrender to the will or authority of another.