Apparently it's not Fred's policy, however.

Fred Sasaki wrote:
If the workshop is closed--that is if one has
to enter a password to read it, or the website is an education tool
restricted to enrolled members--then we can still consider the work.
If I can find the poem through Google, then we cannot consider it.
Maybe a more apt rule is a Google rule of some kind.


http://www.poets.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11671

And that's it from me....I'll shut up now. I'm unpopular enough already.

L

Maybe you call it Poetry, but that last Sasaki piece just looked like a website post with line breaks.

Well, unless they are more adept at Google than I am, which is possible, Tim's all clear because I can't find the poem on Google.

I don't know about present policy of "The Raintown Review" but I was very impressed when Harvey Stanbrough told me that he actually liked to publish work that had been published elsewhere. He said a good poem improved with reading and that readers liked the surge of recognition they experienced when they came upon a good familiar poem. I think he was right.
Janet

I think that's part of my point - or my question. Tim mentioned that Alan changed the title....and most poems are only searchable by the title...or perhaps the first line, but I doubt any editor would bother doing the second, even if he were so inclined to do the first. I think it's probably more an honor system sort of deterrent at best.
The way it's worded on the submission site - it's pretty much open to interpretation. Maybe that's what was intended all along.

Just to be on the safe side, though, maybe we ought to consider not titling anything we intend to send to Poetry.

Since I've not got the nerve to send them anything more than once every 2 or three years and I've already gotten my tri-annual rejection, I doubt I'll worry much about it for awhile.

All the 'don't ask, don't tell' folks are right. The notion of an internet workshop is probably rather foreign, and I doubt anyone would get too inquisitorial about the Sphere. So let's just shut up, 'kay?

(And I say this with all due respect, Lo. But really, I think if this is a sleeping dog, it's an annoying toy chihuahua. The thing's annoying and micturates on the carpet. Let it rest.)

Quincy)

I think poets should take to heart the old adage(would it be an adage? what's an adage?)'Vote early and vote often'. Me, I flog my poems as often as I can, mostly for a pittance, sometimes for nothing, but AS OFTEN AS I CAN. I urge my fellow poets to do likewise. TReat your verse chldren as bits of journalism, and the editor Janet quoted, he has the right idea. The great Les Murray says, 'a different hemisphere doesn't count'. The other thing you can do is to CUT THEM UP. Alexander Pope is my model. Cut them up and sell them bit by bit. Tim's got something going here. 150 poems workshopped and placed. THAT's what I call poetry! Did I tell you that EVERY ONE of the poems in 'Being the Bad Guy' had been sold somewhere, sometimes more than once. Didn't I say? It's true nonetheless. Having said that I haven't won any money for BLOODY MONTHS. I'm getting twitchy. A guy called James Michie used to give me loads of £25 prizes for the Spectator. But he died of being so old. The new ones don't know what they're doing. They don't give me the money. Tste is a thing of the past. BASTARDS! That's the attitude to have. You lot are so GOOD. Stop being so modest. The stuff here is much better than most of the published stuff. This is degenerating into a rant and I haven't had my dinner yet.

[This message has been edited by John Whitworth (edited July 31, 2008).]

Well said, John.
Personally, I have always felt that when a magazine dies (as formalist journals are so prone to do), anything published in it is eligible to be published again, and probably no one outside these (virtual) walls will have read it before.

He said a good poem improved with reading and that readers liked the surge of recognition they experienced when they came upon a good familiar poem. I think he was right.
Janet

Janet, I agree entirely.

The idea that once a new poem (or any other art work) has been exposed to any degree of public view it is "old", or is in some way compromised by its exposure, is a very childish one, in my view.

How often do we re-read the same old poems, over and over? And if they are really good, we find that we can never wear them out.

But today, in many places (like Poetry) for a poem to be once seen in public is to be declared dead. For me, is the sign of a childish, immature culture, obsessed only with the "new, new, new."

The great Les Murray says, 'a different hemisphere doesn't count'.

John, with all respect to the great man, this statement belongs to a lost world - ancient history. With web-mag publishing, there is only one hemisphere. And it's really the only place to publish poems today.

Laura. Rest assured you are very popular, I for one delight in reading your grumpy posts.
--anyway I think popularity is over rated and that you are smart enough to understand that talent can go under any title.
The same goes for the poems; never post the finished draft and title in a workshop for a little praise.