Raise the Accomplishment Bar?

Rick Mullin · #1 01-31-2018, 10:11 AM

I'm wondering whether or not we should raise the bar for posting in Accomplished Members. It used to be, as I recall, that Acc Mem was for announcements on the level of prizes won, collections published, poems coming up in the big name journals, dazzling reviews received (perhaps). Not sure that every landing in, say, online journals, especially the dailies, matters enough to announce in this venue.

I may be wrong! I can understand the interest in celebrating publication and recognition of all sizes and shapes, and I love getting into the dailies. I crow immediately Facebook and Twitter. Just want to see if this requires a discussion. My view is that, in keeping with our trying to maintain a high-end critique board here, we apply some kind of high-end criteria for posting in Acc Mem. We have enough heavy hitters to keep it active.

Simon Hunt · #2 01-31-2018, 11:23 AM

Thanks for speaking up, Rick. I can imagine that it might have been tempting to keep quiet so as not to seem a scrooge, and I think you may have a point--certainly it's worth discussing.

For myself, though, I enjoy reading whatever people want to post in AM--much as I'm always glad to see the "good news" thread in GT bumped back up and to see what's there. At this point, I seldom post congratulations to AM threads--except for news that seems especially BIG to me--and I accept that my threads may be little-commented-upon... But I read them often and enjoy people's successes of various kinds (and occasionally glean the name of a place I'd like to submit myself).

Julie Steiner · #3 01-31-2018, 11:30 AM

My self-serving, opportunistic side (we all have them) enjoys seeing which form-friendly journals and editors the rest of you hard workers have laboriously researched and vetted for me. Keep those announcements coming, people. They're easily skipped by those who find them unimpressive.

Rick Mullin · #4 01-31-2018, 12:03 PM

In any case, I don't suggest that anything other than personal discretion regulate what is posted. Just opening a vein to see what bleeds.

Susan McLean · #5 01-31-2018, 12:08 PM

I think snobbery is to be avoided when it comes to accomplishments. Not everyone can win a prize or get a book out often, yet even beginners can bask in getting their first publications (even online!) and we can all benefit from hearing which venues that we may not know of are accepting poems in form.

Susan

Rick Mullin · #6 01-31-2018, 12:36 PM

I do hope I'm not coming off as a snob, Susan.

RM

Maryann Corbett · #7 01-31-2018, 01:02 PM

A very long time ago, I proposed that we only post in Accomplished Members about poems we'd workshopped here. I can't find the thread, but I assure you that suggestion floated about as well as the Titanic after it met the iceberg. Since then I've figured people need to use their own best judgment about what belongs in A.M.

(And Rick, no, you're certainly not coming off as a snob.)

Max Goodman · #8 01-31-2018, 01:53 PM

I want to echo Simon's thanks that you brought this up, Rick.

Rick Mullin · #9 01-31-2018, 02:04 PM

OK, so I notice that Susan M. has a good one at Asses of Parnassus today. I had one at New Verse News over the weekend. I have two accepted poems on deck at Asses of Parnassus, and that's my second of the month at NVN. I love being in both places, and both have sent me packing in the past.

Neither Susan nor I have posted these "accomplishments" in accomplished members, so the personal discretion thing seems to work.

Many of us have been repeat offenders at these places, as well as at Autumn Sky and E-Verse Radio and the Lite journals. They are accomplishments at a certain level, but not the trigger level, I've determined, for my own little victories. And I guess that affects my view of what the thread is for. Maybe I am a snob.

Oddly, I completely disagree that the poems should be workshopped here. If I ever win anything and its for a poem I didn't bring here, I am going to crow like a moose.

RM

Michael Cantor · #10 01-31-2018, 02:10 PM

I agree with Rick. It's not a beginner's site, and I don't think every poem published requires an announcement and a series of congratulations. If it's a first poem, or a prestigious publication, or or one that might not be recognized as form-friendly, or a prize winner, or a Pulitzer or Nobel nominee - of course - but basically I'm in accord Rick's post. (Of course, if I have something published anywhere, and somebody else mentions it - well that's just fate.)