If you've ever turned on a television or radio you will know that beauty sells, regardless of whether it has significant content or not. If you add up the successes of prose with linebreaks--all none of them--you will see that even the most profound thought disguised as poetry fools no one. One might think this would be self-evident: those bright enough to appreciate the subtleties of meaning would certainly be clever enough to know that these can be obtained elsewhere with infinitely more artistry. Thus, there is no audience (not only due to the lack of rhythm or sonic appeal) and readership is limited to those trying to sell, not necessarily buy, musings of similar "quality".
Even with $253,000,000+ behind them, the Poetry Foundation, established in 2003, hasn't produced a single poem that you, I, or others have found memorable--certainly not one with any performance appeal. You can't buy readers, let alone listeners. How many times have you seen anyone quote from a poem in Poetry Magazine this century?
There is a Goth aspect to postmodernism. It isn't merely devoid of aesthetic merit, as one expects from anyone too lazy to study prosody. It is Convenient Poetics on steroids. Incapable of beauty, the purveyors of cryptocrap become imbued with a puritanical fervor against it.
It is as if envy became a virtue, failure a sacrament.
Traditionally, one way to mock a poem was to read it (often in what we now call "poet voice") aloud. This was a way of saying that the words were neither memorizable nor worthy of memorization--in short, that they didn't constitute poetry by any useful definition. Today, parody has met practice as poets are caught on camera, in public, reading their own work. To be clear, these are not works in process. These weren't handed to the poet minutes before going onstage. And the poets didn't all suffer some catastrophic illness or accident that deprived them of short term memory. We're talking laziness and lack of craft. This being poetry's "norm" is proof of morbidity. Audiences don't object because there are no audiences.
Naturally, poetry editors, publishers and promoters can't accept this truth, even to the point of denying it. After all, it undermines everything they're trying to do. However, we can hardly cooperate in reanimating something without acknowledging that it is, in fact, dead. (We'll discuss how page poets and outlets will benefit from stage poets in future posts.)
Consider this albeit perverse view
You don't need to be a gardener to know that annuals die each winter. Perhaps this was an Ice Age for poetry. Can this be spring? For an individual, this could be a "glass half full" opportunity. The few great poets are retired and/or unknown to the public, the few that are recognized aren't poets, and virtually no one, least of all the authors themselves, can perform the stuff. The path is wide open for anyone who knows the craft and can do or network with those who can do the three P's: Performance, Presentation (e.g. videos), and Promotion. Note that, with the Internet in general, YouTube in particular, we have a facility humankind has never had: the ease of individuals to find a global reception not just for text and still pictures (e.g. photos, paintings, graphics) but for video as well. We can talk to the world!
It being a mode of speech, poetry needs to be performed. Not read. Would you watch a movie where the characters read from scripts? Or woodenly from prompters? And, no, we're not talking about equally unmodulated slammers screaming and gesticulating wildly for three solid minutes. We're talking performance, something so rare that we have to re-use the same examples over and over again.
To illustrate, compare Andy Garcia's performance of "The Goring and the Death" from Federico Garcia Lorca's "Llanto por Ignacio Sánchez Mejías" to the dreaded "poet voice" we know all to well:
Brace yourself for Gregory Orr reading "Gathering the Bones":
William Ernest Henley's "Invictus", written in 1875, published in "Book of Verses" under "Life and Death (Echoes)", 1888:
Out of the night that covers me, Black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.
Consider this appearance by Morgan Freeman on the Charlie Rose show when they discuss Nelson Mandala.
Rewind a few hundred times over the moment at the :38 second mark where Morgan laughs and gives a doleful look at Charlie Rose's offer of the poem's text. Note how incredulous the host is that a person--an award winning professional actor, no less--can actually [gasp!] recite a classic 16 line poem from memory.
We begin by apologizing to Divya Victor for singling out "Locution/Location" from all the other vacuous dreck being put out today. We choose this sample because even its preface is pretensious nonsense:
This is what writing is: I one language, I another language, and between the two, the line that makes them vibrate; writing? forms a passageway between two shores.
—Hélène Cixous, “Three Steps on the Ladder of Writing”
This one seems to be about the weighty issue surrounding the pronunciation of the letter "H". We won't need more than the first strophe to make our point:
She sings the letters to my daughter, strings them marigolds into garlands in the order of the alphabet E, F, G, she tugs the haitch, taut and long far from the breast, a letter the length of a coast, the width of a gull’s caw, she now carries the haitch like I will carry the gurney later, weightless hammer of feather the letters swim with the orange petals around & around her, child & crone milkflesh holme, mouthly smelling of talc and gooseberry
No one, least of all the author, would bother to memorize this word salad, let alone perform it. Were anyone to do so the audience would look at them like pigs in "The Commissar's Report", as if to ask "Why are you inflicting this on us?" One would look like a jackass. Hence the "poetry reading", which doesn't involve the presenter looking listeners in the eye. It is, in every sense, the antipodal opposite of poetry.
What is the upshot of this lack of exposure to good performance, let alone good contemporary writing?
Recently, we posted this challenge here, in a [novice] showcase group, and in a gathering of most of the world's top poets and editors:
Describe a poem that Facebookers would Share.
No one could visualize such a thing. Not only could they not recall a time they Shared or Retweeted any verse themselves, they could not envision what such a piece would look like.
Thus, not only is poetry dead, but none of us can imagine it being alive.
How long does brain surgery take if you know absolutely nothing about medicine? Use a club to knock the patient unconscious, drill through the skull, root around until you find something that looks out of place, rip it out, close the wound, and you're done! As is the patient, but no one said anything about successful brain surgery, right?
Newcomers often ask how long it takes to write a poem. It can take forever but, generally speaking, the answer depends on how good the poet and poem are. Poor poets produce dreck at breakneck speeds. Their process involves far fewer steps.
Jotting down an outline can take minutes. A newcomer may now say: "Voilà! We're done!" First thought, best though, right? Time to find an unsuspecting reader...
A slightly less raw neophyte might take the rest of the day to produce a draft. (Note we didn't write "a first draft".) Then they're done.
If writing for the "publish or perish" academic crowd the journey is a little longer. One has to inject some clever, original phrases. A random text generator can help find the perfectly baffling modifier or metaphor. One or two of these per poem should suffice. Thus, we can finish in a weekend and ship the end product off to Poetry magazine or our university press.
Because it has to have objective merit, technical verse will take weeks--a month if free verse. There is a trick to this: Do the sonics before the rhythm. Choose soft sounds for reflection, harsh ones for drama, and repeat them (as assonance, consonance, alliteration, or rhyme) as appropriate. Attend to cadence last, either in meter or in rhythm strings (which distinguish free verse from prose [poetry]).
At this point, what you have might win a Nemerov but it won't draw a crowd. Why not? Because we've forgotten that poetry is a mode of speech. We need to gear it for an audience, not a readership. We must perform it (or find someone who can and will). This usually means memorizing it and practicing our presentation. We have to sound natural, performing rather than reciting. And certainly not reading.
At no point onstage can we look up and to the right, a telltale sign than we're trying to recall something. This is vital, since our eyes must be free to search the audience for hints of waxing or waning interest. If the people at an open mic are leaning forward and shushing those around them, we have them. (This, incidentally, is the greatest feeling in human experience.) If, on the other hand, we see them slouching backward and whispering to each other we have work to do.
Once we have something worth showing the world the final step is to create a video and post it to a public forum such as YouTube or Vimeo. We will address the basics of this process in a subsequent blog.
With talent, education, practice, inspiration, and some luck, an actual poet can often finish a work in two months.
"Multiculturalism is vital to poetry because it is virtually impossible for an anglophone to imagine a world where poetry is alive, just as others cannot envision a world where it isn't." - EG
Contemporary English language poetry is a cautionary tale.
The Poetry Foundation and Poetry magazine stand in solidarity with the Black community, and denounce injustice and systemic racism.
As an organization we recognize that there is much work to be done, and we are committed to engaging in this work to eradicate institutional racism. We acknowledge that real change takes time and dedication, and we are committed to making this a priority.
We believe in the strength and power of poetry to uplift in times of despair, and to empower and amplify the voices of this time, this moment.
Ultimately, we dream of a world in which there are more sustainable ways for poets to support themselves that do not require them to engage with institutions that may not share their values.
We could have lived without the politicalization after "themselves". Why should viable artists have to engage with any institution?
Other than co-sponsoring "Poetry Out Loud", which the Foundation seeds with poems that have zero performance value, it's hard to see what interest these people have in promoting this mode of speech. The letter continues:
Ultimately, we dream of a world in which the massive wealth hoarding that underlies the Foundation’s work would be replaced by the redistribution of every cent to those whose labor amassed those funds.
They had me until the last five words. If only they had finished with "dedicated to poetry promotion and education." That the Foundation is still financially stable is not a problem. (What should we expect from an organization run by a banker?)
An educator would put a poetry primer into the hands of every student in America. A promoter would insinuate poetry into movies, television shows, and bars from the Keys to the Aleutians. A networker would create discussions among poets, actors, songwriters, musicians, playwrights, web designers, governments, venue owners, and all other associated entities.
It is like a Catch-22. The fact that you're reading about how to go get published proves that it is too early for you.
It is important to understand that there is little or no recompense involved here. Glory? The only people reading your words will be others curious about what kind of stuff they have to write in order to be published there themselves. Bear in mind, too, that there are thousands of poetry magazines and webzines sharing very few readers.
There is also the small matter of poetry's condition. How many living poets can you name? More to the point, how many do you think even 1% of the population can name?
With neither fortune nor fame in the mix, is there a downside to being published? Certainly! Editors almost always want "first serial rights", such that, while it might be used in a future collection, future magazine editors are unlikely to want that work. Worse yet, if you were foolish enough to use your real name, publications could cause problems for you in the future. As you improve, you might get more and more ambitious in your submissions. Your chances won't be enhanced by future editors web searching your name and finding your rawest pieces. Meanwhile, prospective employers and other business contacts might not like what they see when they Google you in the future.
"Okay, then I'll publish a book."
See Rule #1. If you self-publish you will, at least, retain distributional control. This is to say that you can bury the product later, when you have produced better offerings. After foisting a few dozen copies on friends and family, the lesson shouldn't cost you more than a few thousand dollars--less if you use LuLu.
Planning a book is not just wrong, it's exactly wrong. As they say, the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. Instead of trying to fill a volume with, say, fifty mediocre poems, try to produce one stunning critically acclaimed masterpiece. Think quality, not quantity. Bear in mind that, aside from the players' parents, no one wants to watch Pop Warner football when they could be watching the NFL. You will be competing against the best poets in the world. It is important to view this as challenging more than daunting.
How to Produce a Stunning Critically Acclaimed Masterpiece
You don't make it into the National Hockey League by skating on your ankles. Craft might not help so much with editors, few of whom have studied it themselves, but it will capture the attention of geeks--any one of whom can create a buzz for you if suitably impressed--and listeners.
2. Respect the craft.
If you don't know whether "The Red Wheel Barrow" is free verse or metrical you can learn. Start now.
If you don't care whether "The Red Wheel Barrow" is free verse or metrical you can't learn. Stop now.
3. Poetry is a mode of speech.
Not writing. Never, ever let anyone see you reading poetry--especially your own--aloud from a script. That would be tantamount to announcing that nothing you write should be taken seriously, even by you.
It follows that you must either perform it or attract the attention of those who can.
4. Say what you need to say.
And nothing more. Ideally, it should be something small that could unfold to something different, something bigger. Avoid clichés and well-worn themes. Use original language to conjure up something interesting.
5. Never, ever describe what you're doing as "poetry".
The idea is to attract listeners, not to repel them. Choose words that people will not only want to hear, but to remember. Verbatim. Let the audience decide what to call and how to treat your offerings.
6. We need to develop performance, multimedia and social media skills or network with those who have them.
By far, the most likely way for an individual to reach a large audience is to have a YouTube video go viral. Here is where technique can mean everything.
7. Avoid any mention of hearts, souls, the abyss, or other overwrought abstractions.
And shards.
Especially shards.
8. Know that you have "arrived" when strangers quote you.
9. Avoid Seinfeldian ("So what?") poems.
If You Insist
If impatient or overconfident, here are some pointers:
Do a web search of outlets or go to "Poets & Writers - Literary Magazines". Look for what seems a suitable venue and then research it. Make sure the outlet is still in operation. Check out their reading period.
What kind of content do they like? As long as it isn't a diary entry, one can wow editors with succinct plotlines that end with an intriguing twist. If not too self-conscious, a clever turn of phrase can help. Humor always sells. Avoid propaganda unless willing to severely limit your options.
Academia is a different market entirely. University presses are a slam dunk if you can claim to be an alumnus and/or can fit in enough literary allusions to keep scholars annotating for hours on end, along with enough dead ends to keep interpreters guessing for decades.
