Quadrant is an influential journal (at least in certain quarters), and its editor is a significant public figure. Maybe, Curtis, you don't think that words matter. If so, I pity you. However, I would not submit a poem to Gut-Toting White Supremacist Quarterly as I am not a gun-toting white supremacist nor in sympathy with such people. Let's say, though, that I repeatedly appeared in Gun-Toting White Supremacist Quarterly--one might draw certain inferences. The point--and it is a rather basic one--is that one does not lend one's voice (e.g. one's writing) to causes one abhors. That is, if one thinks such things are important.

Quincy, I rather doubt that any poem you might get published in Gun-Toting White Supremacist Quarterly would have any effect whatsoever on gun culture or the prevalence of white supremacy.

The inference that might be made: Quincy's a white-supremacist! Quincy is in favor of unregulated gun ownership and use! But the world would not tip one way or another. And if you don't submit for publication in that journal? Someone else will; there'll still be a poem filling that space.

Now, if Pope Francis published a poem in that journal, maybe there would be some effect.

I'm absolutely not an absolutist.

But that's not the point, is it? If one thinks the journals one publishes in don't matter, well, tell that to the HUAC. Tell it to the CDF. Such things have always mattered.

Frankly, there are journals, here and abroad, I wouldn't want to be associated with. I wouldn't want my name, obscure as it is, linked to what they do. Do I have friends, even close friends, who publish in some of those places? Yes, I do. Does that mean I think less of them? Well, I get a quizzical look on my face when I think about it, but in the end, I love them no matter what.

And just as frankly, many of those journals wouldn't have me any way. I'm not part of their circle. And even within sub-circles, this tendency exists. Association works both ways.

Best,

Bill

Well, yes, Bill. Look at my examples of inferences, from my last comment. Or my first two sentences in comment #18 above.

That's all understandable. But "higher-order moral fibre" as the label applied to, "What I think will best benefit my own image".....eh?

You are associated, whether you like it or not, by the crowd you run with. In the same way, a writer earns or is given a reputation by the places that writer publishes.

Most certainly there are publications I would not submit to. I made that error once. Never again (I hope).

When seeking publication, one might ask: What would Ritsos and Montale do?



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenio_Montale
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yiannis_Ritsos

It's been brought to my attention that I did not name the translator of the above; he is Translated by A. S. Kline. I know I went back to enter his name after I posted, but I must not have done a save. I took that translation from the Internet because I was/am short on time and did not have time to type it in. Here is the link and I will remove the poem.

My personal favorite among the translations I know of is by George Kay and its title is Hitler Spring. It is my favorite because it is good and because it is the first translation I read. Jonaton Galassi has a fine translation in his bilingual Montale Collected Poems 1920-1954. It is titled The Hitler Spring.

However

Cross-posted with a few folks. Like Quincy, I too have friends who are political innocents and publish non-political poems, and only non-political poems, in places where I would not, but I would not unfacebook them for that. I just hope they wise up someday.

I do think that the words matter. I do not think that some poem about a family snapshot, published in Quadrant, would be the same as a poem titled Verse Manifesto on Our Present Need for Genocide. Saying that the two would have identical effect, simply because of where they appear, seems to me a fundamental misunderstanding about "the power of words."

This is not to say that other power effects will not occur. For instance the Poet X vs Pope Francis type of example: there, it's about persons, or personalities, and whatever glamour of [moral] authority attaches to either. Even so, in a world like our own where some issues are so polarized, I'm not sure that net effects are always great.

What happens when one lends one's good name to a nasty little fascist magazine is that it gives it an air of legitimacy.

In fact that is how a poem of mine ended up once long ago in a place I regret. I saw "respectable" poets had been published there, and I as not aware that it was a front for dissemination of dark propaganda I sent work there too. But at least I wised up.

Dear me, where all getting a liitle pompous here, as Quincy says. I do't think magazine of the conservative persuasion is a nasty little fascist magazine, unless fascist is being used in the well-known student way equalling someone I don't approve of. Let's all publish where we like, shall we? I don't think a poem by me has a snowball's chance in hell of appearing in this chap's journal. I'll bet he hates rhymes.

John, to clarify, I was not talking about Quadrant or in any way referencing you.

I can tell you from personal experience that keith and les are good guys