Tag: Poor rude lines

PUBLISHING DEAD POETS

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,  
But sad mortality o’ersways their power,  
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,  
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?

O! how shall summer’s honey breath hold out,  
Against the wrackful siege of battering days,  
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,  
Nor gates of steel so strong but Time decays?  
O fearful meditation! where, alack,  
Shall Time’s best jewel from Time’s chest lie hid?  
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?  
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?    
O! none, unless this miracle have might,    
That in black ink my love may still shine bright.

Shakespeare Sonnet 65

One of the reasons poets want their poems published is so they’ll live on, after their death —the poems, I mean — though there’s a sense in which we want to believe a bit of the author is preserved along with them. If a UK book or pamphlet has an ISB number, copies will nestle in the copyright libraries forever. Or not. There are six mandatory receiving libraries in the UK. (In Poland there are 19).

There is a cost to this for publishers, of course, and also for the libraries. Cambridge University Library has been a legal deposit library since 1710. It currently houses its print contents over 100 miles of shelving, expanding at the rate of two miles per year.

Still it’s a comfort to know that once a book is positioned securely somewhere in those 100 miles, it’s safe. The words between the covers are protected from ‘the wrackful siege of battering days’ for a good while.

But publishing dead poets is problematic – unless the authors have already achieved school textbook status and outlasted copyright restrictions. Poets like Keats and Shakespeare sell well (in the context of a genre whose sales stats sink the heart). Other poets sell poorly at the best of times, and if they’re no longer around to help promote . . .

Because increasingly living poets have a dynamic role as marketers and promoters of their own books. They announce publication in social networks; some of them blog online; they work hard to get online reviews and offline readings. They ask all their friends to write to Poetry Please and request them. Publishers mainly don’t do this any more, if they ever did.

Living poets are placed between two stools. On the one hand, many of them are modest, bookish people. On the other, they are producing their own promotional text, with varying degrees of unease. Some of them turn out to be amazingly good at it. Others are frankly terrible.

Dead poets are spared this. With luck, some of their friends will continue to promote their book(s). But with the best will in the world, enthusiasm vacillates and wavers over time.

And other factors come into play. The work of dead poets is hard to get reviewed, even if the publisher is sending out myriad copies. Many publications don’t review the work of dead poets as standard policy. There are too many books every year from living poets clamouring for attention.

Dead poets can’t apply for grants or residencies. Dead poets can’t take on commissions. Dead poets can’t answer letters. Dead poets can’t network or blog. Dead poets can’t appear at festivals. Dead poets can’t write new topical poems. Dead poets can’t upload recordings on YouTube or SoundCloud.

And books of dead poets are usually ineligible for prizes and awards. The Forward Prize, for example, stipulates that ‘work submitted on behalf of an author who is deceased at the date of publication of the work is not eligible.’ What does a dead poet need with a cash prize? But it’s not the cash. It’s the attention that both the dead and the living most need. That’s what brings readers to poems.

If the poet is not there demanding attention, who is doing it for them?

The original idea was that the poems would continue doing the job. ‘Time’s best jewel’ would ‘still shine bright’ in ‘black ink’. People would read the printed poems and share them. That phenomenon known as ‘word of mouth’ would do the business.

Theoretically ‘word of mouth’ is more powerful than ever before. Publishers are keen to exploit the possibility that any text could go viral. It worked for J K Rowling. So far as I know, it has never (yet) worked for poetry.

Where am I going with this? HappenStance has just published a book of poetry by a dead poet. The Years, by Tom Duddy, will not be promoted or circulated by Tom Duddy, though his friends and family will do their best. It will not be entered for any prizes. It will gradually find its way to a number of very good readers: at least I hope it will. It is a beautiful book with the highest production quality we could get. There are times when an absolute belief in the work must override all other considerations. This is one of those times.

Meanwhile, a living HappenStance poet, C J Driver, will be taking part in a memorial service for Nelson Mandela in Westminster Abbey at noon on March 3rd. Among other words, Jonty will be upholding the faith by sharing a bit of Shakespeare, undying proof that some poetry really does endure.

b2ap3_thumbnail_TOM-DUDDY-SMALL.jpg

TO BLOG OR NOT TO BLOG?

And is there a blogjam? Probably, yes.

And here’s another entry floating downstream and contributing to the probblog. Do I care? Not particularly. Bloggers don’t. They scribble away merrily, part of the hubbub. Nobody has to read them. It costs nothing but time.

Which is, of course, the most precious thing we have.

Should poets blog? Does it help them to be successful, to get their poems read? It depends. It can do the opposite. If you launch a blog, it’s hard to undo it.

When I was at school, our English teacher said we should keep a diary. She said it would improve our style. So I kept a diary for about twenty years – maybe more. I don’t think it did anything for my style, but then I wrote it for myself, not for anybody else. It occurs to me that prose style is improved through writing for readers. I expect there are exceptions, but still the desire to be readable, to be engaging, to communicate – that’s worth fostering, isn’t it?

Who reads all the blogs? Lord knows. They become part of the Twittersphere, the FaceBookspeak, the vast network of communicators on the internet passing on links and connections. Something that interests one person, even slightly, is passed to another, and so on.

I can’t read all the good books that are being generated right now: no-one ever could. I can’t even read a fraction of the poetry. But I do read poetry bloggers: they make connections for me, and guide my reading. Some of these bloggers are also poets I’ve published; some are not. I’m always finding new ones. It’s like being at a huge party where you go back to the drinks and snacks and meet another person on your way. Or one person introduces you to another. Better than a party, really because you can go home whenever you want.

Recently I’ve had a great time reading Anthony Wilson’s ‘Lifesaving Poems’. It’s not just the style (open, personal and unfussy), it’s the introductions to actual poems I might never have read – and you get them in full. The recent blog on Sian Hughes led me to a poem and then into the poem, and now I shan’t forget the blog (or the dog either).

John Field’s Poor Rude Lines is splendid too, and he includes pictures – beautiful photos and graphics, which light up the lines. The blogs I like best are unashamedly personal. This week John shared his personal response to Fiona Moore’s The Only Reason for Time – and this is not a devious way of getting a friend to help sell the publication. No, he loved it and wrote about it, and I have never met him.

Meanwhile, Fiona Moore herself blogs too. She’s a terrific writer about poetry (being a poet doesn’t necessarily mean that you write about poetry well). This time last week she wrote about the experience of having that selfsame pamphlet published. Fascinating. Well, I would say that, wouldn’t I? Yes. But it is.

When you read a blogger you like, they lead you to others. That’s another of the lovely things about the blogjam. You get drawn in and before you know where you are, you’re back to Margaret Thatcher and Katy Evans-Bush writing brilliantly about her. Then off to check up on Tim Love, whose literary references were an education to me long before I published a word of poetry (my own or anyone else’s), and now he has a sub-blog (bloglet?) about the experience of his HappenStance pamphlet, Moving Parts. Check out the poster on his local library door!

Then there’s Sonofabook, Charles Boyle’s CB Editions publisher blog. He’s funny and he has a kind of addictive raspy edge. He’s also expensive because I want to buy the books. All of them. He’s a role model to roll with.

So many great blogs. How does anyone ever get bored?

As for whether poets should or shouldn’t (blog), far more of the poets I have published don’t blog than do. One blog isn’t like another blog, nor used for the same reasons. Chrissy Williams’ is mainly promotional. Matt Merritt often reviews books or pamphlets on his, but also writes about birds: that’s Polyolbion. Rob A Mackenzie blogs at Surroundings: he writes about a huge range, ineffably. Matthew Stewart blogs at Rogue Strands – a blend of comment on poetry, reviews of his own work, and experiences in the wine trade. Jim C Wilson, a newer blogger, is personal, anecdotal and amusing – a kind of update for friends. Andrew Philip (Tonguefire blog) is a diarist: life events and publications.

I know poets who have started to blog and stopped again. In fact, now I think about it, I started several before this one. You live and learn. I write this every Sunday morning, unless a life crisis stops me, and that’s been true for several years. Why? Officially, it’s a publisher’s blog: it’s here to promote HappenStance and its poets.

The real reason? I am a writer. I like the discipline, I like the practice. I’m dead strict with writers I’m editing. This is where I get strict with me. Brief is better. No pictures this week. I’ll stop now.