[Maryann Corbett]

At the risk of revealing more than I intend, I'll have a go at these questions, but I can only speak for myself.

Does anyone in this room read any poetry other than their own or what appears on the Eratosphere workshops?

Yes. I try to read the magazines I subscribe to and the contributors copies I get, though the process can take a while. The magazines are mostly US and only rarely UK. I also read Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, and the Rattle site daily, and when I get an e-mail from poets.org, I read that too.

And I've now been on the receiving end of unsolicited submissions, which was quite the adventure.

Most of the books I buy are either by poets whose work I already I know or are older, well-reviewed collections. (For example, I'd like to score a cheap copy of Mark Jarman's Unholy Sonnets.)

Is the poetry floating out of the publishing houses and clouds about navel fluff, or national politics, or the working class, or weighty existential queries and meditations?

All of those, and it varies from magazine to magazine and issue to issue.

Is contemporary work formal, or humorous, or spread out all over the page, a kind of connect-the-words?

The spread-out-all-over-the-page thing is rare in my experience. Formal work exists out there beyond the Sphere, but slant rhyme and loose meter are more common.

Does it arrive from a publishing house or self-published on a cloud?

I'm reading stuff that publishers produce, so I can't say.

Are poets channeling the old masters or assembling structures from refrigerator magnets?

Most of what I see channels contemporary speech and tries to create of it something memorable or elevated.

Do poets borrow poetry at the library, or buy poetry from some source--what source?

I use the library and interlibrary loan. And I buy. Mostly used, through Amazon, but sometimes from used bookstores.

Do poets actively seek out new work or just routinely "like" on social media?

Poetry Daily is a good way to be introduced to new work. Talking to others (online or in person) about what has impressed them lately is another good way.

What poetry do you think gets the most reads--poetry of past or contemporary elite/recognized or the smallish poetry pal constellations?

I can only say what I read, and I wish I had more time to go back to the poetry of the past. The new sort of overwhelms it.

Do aspiring poets care about anyone's poetry except their own?

Yes. Other poems often trigger our own.

Now everybody else can tell me how totally weird I am.