The Outerview Series: Part XI - Attracting and Impressing

      If you spend time on Q&A sites (e.g. Quora) the most common poetry-related query is "Where can I post my poetry online?"

      No one ever asks:  "Where can read or hear [contemporary] poetry online?"

      The second most popular question from neophytes is:  "How can I protect my masterpieces against plagiarism?"

      LOL!  (By not producing anything worth stealing.)

Is money the opposite of poetry?

      When heiress Ruth Lily died in 2002 she left approximately $100,000,000 to the Modern Poetry Association.  It wasn't until 2018 that all the lawsuits were settled, by which time it had grown to $257,000,000 or what is now The Poetry Foundation, publishers of Poetry magazine.  It has partnered with the National Endowment for the Arts to produce the "Poetry Out Loud!" initiative.  For its part, Poetry magazine was established in Chicago in 1912 by Harriet Moore.  In June of 1915 she published T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"  [after Ezra Pound scanned it for her to convince her that it wasn't merely "the muttering of an old man"].

      "That's the one with all the different line lengths and extra syllables before them, right?"

       Yes.  Heterometrical, with a lot of anacrusis--extra syllables before the meter.

       After that brilliant start, how has small-p poetry [other than song lyrics] fared?  With all of the money, effort, and other publications, how many poems have entered our public consciousness in, say, the last half century?

       "I can't think of any--"

       Zero.  A perfect record, unblemished by success.  With all of that money, all of the learning, critical and promotional resources--online and in print--and all of those venues you would think this would be a golden age of poetry.  You'd think we'd know at least as many poets as novelists.  You'd think we'd quote contemporary verse at least as much as Shakespearean.

        Nope.  Not a single iconic poem since that limerick about a man from Nantucket in 1961.  So how can we revive a dead art form?  How do we resurrect verse?

        While it may take generations, the course of action is remarkably simple:  Do the opposite of what got us into this situation.  Do the opposite of what everyone else is doing.

Post Production

      Having posted your performance the real work begins:  Getting people to hear it at a time when poetry is dead.  99.9% of the verse you and I will hear in our lives will be song lyrics.  We're talking about spoken poetry--a virtually impossible sale.  It follows that this will require unusual if not unprecedented measures over a long period of time.

      No one introduces their novel, news or short story as "prose" so don't refer to your presentation as "poetry".  Just start talking.  No introduction.  No explanation.  Tell your story and get off the stage.  Provide the text and author's credits below the video.  Give your post, if not your poem, an inviting or provocative title and hashtags of intriguing subjects.  For example, this meme (i.e. text only) poem, "Paradise Has No Colonies", has tags corresponding to each line's theme, aspects of a prostitute's life:  experience, redemption, incest, artifice, subterfuge, education, identity, childbirth, and pedophilia.  

Revival

      If poetry is to be resurrected it must be as a participatory sport.  Two hundred years ago people read verse in every available periodical not as a life lesson but as fodder for home entertainment [before movies, radio, television, the Internet, etc.].  The object, then, is to get people to perform your pieces.

      This leads us to Pearl's 14th Paradox, which the uninitiated will regard as heresy:



      "Do you mean actual plagiarism?  Isn't that theft?"

       Consider this famous quote:

      "Good artists borrow.  Great artists steal."

       Some attribute it to Pablo Picasso, but most can benefit from the wisdom without getting bogged down in authorship.

       As a poet you need people to do covers--performances--of your verse.  99% will credit you for writing it but what is important is that they treat the words as their own while uttering them.



       You need the actor to pause for thought before each phrase as a speaker does normally.  In that sense, yes, you do need them to "steal" your words.  (As with cover songs, authorship won't be an issue afterwards.  Anyone who can see the posting date will know who created the poem.)  

       This "theft" is and always has been essential to poetry's proliferation.

       In order to appeal to people's competitive natures, encourage visitors to record their own performances of your poem and post the URLs to their version below yours.  Create a contest out of each of your works. Start by challenging family, friends, then strangers to outdo each other.

Next:  The Meaning of Meaning

The Outerview Series

The Outerview Series:  Part I - What is poetry?
The Outerview Series:  Part II - Where is poetry?
The Outerview Series:  Part III - What is Rhythm?
The Outerview Series:  Part IV - Scan Poems Backward
The Outerview Series:  Part V - Rhyming is Fun
The Outerview Series:  Part VI - Super Sonics
The Outerview Series:  Part VII - Production
The Outerview Series:  Part VIII - Manufacturing an Audience
The Outerview Series:  Part IX - Crafting Drafts
The Outerview Series:  Part X - Production
The Outerview Series:  Part XI - Attracting and Impressing
The Outerview Series:  Part XII - The Meaning of Meaning