Quote:
Originally posted by Michael Juster:
It feels to me that there is a clubby aspect to all of this--and, mind you, I know I obviously benefit from being an associate member of sorts of the formalista club--but I'm not at all persuaded that a nonacademic off the street can send samples of good work and a polite query to an editor of a major journal and get "admitted." You can for a few of the most desperate and obscure journals, but they tend to go out of business shortly thereafter without your review seeing the light of day.
I'm probably guilty of being whiny, self-centered and immodest by raising this point, but a similar argument seems to go also to whether your books get reviewed too.
Sorry for being difficult.
|
Michael,
I want to add to this, the clubby aspect. For years I have thought about it, and it is the way it ought to be. They must be clubby! They don't have a choice. When people jump up onto a a chair and crow, they don't want to get off the chair, they can't help it. The power to choose is addictive. Nothing makes any difference but to write poems people can't refuse. Few people can see beyond arms length, which holds their own poetry and their own ideas. Networking leads to ego. The battlefield board game is set, play the game with fantastic poetry and the little men will come to your side.
Paint beautiful paintings and they will sell; a simple thesis but true.
Also; "Editors will often say that they are swamped with poetry, but what they really need are book reviews."
They are swamped with <u>bad</u> poetry. But I think they need more book reviews too.
TJ