Poets & Writers: The Evolution of Online Journals
 

From Page to Pixels: The Evolution of Online Journals, by Sandra Beasley

Poets & Writers: Tools for Writers

I read this the other day, from an article posted on the Harriet blog:

"I hate poetry magazines by and large. You get two copies in the mail. One to archive and the other to read for a week and then to give away. Poems, fiction and a sad bit of art or two. It seems like poetry dies in such magazines. All alone with each other essentially. It’s the death of our art form these journals and I say it has to end here. Can’t we get our poems out some other way."

Eileen Myles

And I agree.

I know most people here will disagree, but paper po-mags depress the hell out of me. I don't bother submitting to them anymore. Mainly because I am convinced that only submitting poets and their immediate families will ever read them. And all those poems cheek by jowl, like graves in a suburban cemetery - yerk.

The same goes for books of poems by individual poets. No one reads these either except conscripted friends of the poet. I would MUCH rather get a poem in an anthology than have my own book.

And I would far prefer to get a poem on a high-traffic website than anywhere else.

Anyway, online is the way people are most likely to discover poems these days - and this trend will only increase.

Online mags are really in their infancy, and with refinements in technology they get better and better.

I sing the poem electric!

I never read print journals all the way through, I scan and browse until I want to read something. With the online variety I can just print out or save the poems or articles I want to read or reread. Not only that, but when I change apartments, as I recently did, there is a lot less to chuck out. I had piles of old journals that went to the recycling bin.

I remember reading that Mr. Giroux of Farrar, Straus & Giroux chose book publishing over magazine publishing because, as he said, "magazines are for wrapping fish." Online journals aren't any less ephemeral, if only because the volume of online material tends to create white noise. But I do like that there is less paper involved.

On the other hand, the physical act of turning a page -- the click of the mouse doesn't compare with that, in my book.

What we need, of course, is a 'book' made of some digital paper derivative into which we can download online material for offline perusal. I like the idea of sitting in the garden with a beer and the latest online rag. And perhaps when we're done we can just open it up and shake out the digital print over some sort of digital bin.

Poetry Publishing for the 21st Century by Timothy Greene

http://timothy-green.org/blog/2009/0...-21st-century/

As I said above, online delivery systems are in their infancy. Before long, I hope, there will be many innovative changes to the way poetry is offered online. This is a good point:

The main beef I have with online literary magazines is that they don’t embrace their own technology — they try to make the journal seem as much like a print journal as possible. They even have cover art, and call it cover art, even though they don’t actually have a cover.

And I definitely believe and endorse this statement:

We’re in the middle of a paradigm shift, and poetry deserves to take advantage of it. Almost overnight, the world has become globally and continuously interactive. There’s no reason to perpetuate the distribution systems that evolved in an environment that no longer exists.

As he says, poetry is a perfect fit for the web and the shortened attention span of surfers.

Poets should be paid. Mark, you might be able to walk to the clams on your beach, but I need money for gas and ammo and dog food to eek out my substistence life. Approximately one fourth of my work appears on line, but not a dime I have seen from Stevens, Landrum, Benedict, all editors I enjoy working with. Peace to Robert Giroux, whose death I mourn, but I shall gladly wrap the few fish I can afford in contributor copies of Poetry or Chronicles or First Things.

I don't imagine that the editors who provide showcases for our work are getting rich by doing so. I feel, and have always felt, that editing a poetry magazine whether online or in print is a labor of love, just like providers of poetry boards and organizers of soup kitchens and bird-watching outings.

I'm sure they too have dogs and parakeets to feed and bread and ammunition to buy--or something. Don't nobody quit your day job, unless you have been appointed to a paid lifetime post as OFFICIAL POET of SOMETHING or won the Nobel.

As Tiny Tim nearly said, "God bless us everyone, and especially unselfish editors of poetry magazines."

Publishing the poetry of Tim and others in The Chimaera, SCR and The Flea, costs me money, hundreds of dollars a year, as well as long hours of work by me, the SCR crew, and Peter Bloxsom. None of this is tax-deductible, and none of it earns me, the editors or the poets a cent. On the other hand I hope it enhances the poets' reputations and perhaps helps to lead eventually to increased paying publications elsewhere for them. The alternative to free publication is to charge for access to the zines, as with PNR, but I doubt many would subscribe to this. If all web zines charged for access people simply would not read the work. Ultimately it is a labour of love, as Janice says: I do it for love of the Muse, because I want to further the cause of poetry. But it cannot possibly be done without poets donating their work, for I cannot pay for poems -- unless I win Lotto.

I send poems only to the paper journals that pay. I make an exception for posh ones in the USA because I figure appearing in them might help my career (what career, you old fool?). I send poems to on-line journals because that way they get read by people - I wonder how many, anyone know? Since I believe that the some parts of the British poetry mafia do not approve of me (rhyming, politics, poets' paranoia, I know) I look for outlets in foreign parts, which comes down to Oz and the US.