Art beyond circulation

[gurdonark]

I picked up Poet's Marketplace 2002 tonight at the bookstore. The publication itself is far more impressive than it was years ago; a huge number of outlets, a decent number of web resources. The poetry publications themselves are perhaps even more tiny than I remembered. It is kinda cool that "Poetry" can cite its 1915 publication of Prufrock as a "sample verse" for aspiring submitters, and its 300 printed out of 90,000 poems submitted makes it more selective than Yale Law School. But its circulation appears to be 12,000. This tells you all you need to know--thousands of people submit tens of thousands of poems but the circulation is less than 15,000. An RV magazine, by contrast, has a circulation of 45,000 or so. Numerous of the small magazines have circulations roughly the same as my little self-published chess poem book. Each little magazine covered has a little editorial blurb of what one should submit. One editor says it best: "self publish". I got a chuckle out of the self-importance of some editors' blurbs. Call me Jerry Lewis in a world filled with Sinclair Lewises. The "Bellboy" was on the TV this morning, and one could do worse. I am still going to do some submissions to some of these mags, but now I remember what I had long ago learned--there is no "there" there in poetry. This cooled somewhat my reverse snobbery, though--even the largest scale is, well, small scale. Why look down on folks who are struggling in small ways, just because they have universities or grants? I could have my own magazine, if I just wanted to start one, right smack dab in poet's market. My criteria: anything remotely smacking of any poet I've loved since the beats is verboten . I want something new, fresh, and legible! I'll bet I could even find readers! But what readers could be as cool as the patient folks here at LJ?

Everybody does indeed want to be validated through "official publication"--I want it desperately myself sometimes. But I am afraid I am going to have to be my own "artist trading card" in life--Topps is not going to put my face on a Poet Card like Mickey Mantle had.

Thus self-empowered, I did two of my 4 nervousness.org poetry exchanges. I am so happy that 4 people took up my exchange from yesterday. One was ab, the woman from the Netherlands who sent me a charming dark-tinged postcardx thing a few months ago.

I'll send her "Choice Regretted", which I posted in LJ and now sits in memory. I wrote a new poem for "susie" on nervousness.org. Maybe I should start my own distance learning school---The Academy of Hasty Poetry. I could offer degrees based on words per minute.

Let me tell you, I can badly decorate an envelope. One has several green vines crayoned on the front, along with pictures of DNA, a red faced man, and atoms on the back. The other has a picture of my face on it, even plainer than my own plain, middle aged face, and thistles and weeds simply sketched on the back. I have learned from outsider artists that you eliminate all misunderstanding of what you are literally drawing by labeling everything. This allows all the misunderstanding to take place on the metaphoric level. But hey, life changes...babelfish.com is actually trying to run a corporation now, and I had to use google to find a Dutch-English machine translator!

I want to pull my projects into shape, get more work done at work, and be a production dynamo! As I edit this, an e mail arrives to offer me vitality, which is a much more credible offer than anatomical alteration or miraculous investments in failed companies, my usual spam fare. scottm, I've got my next few weekends clear, and we have vibrations, rattles and hums to record! What's your schedule?

Comments

Oh So Nervous

[reneesarah.livejournal.com]

Neurasthenia: A condition marked by fatigue, loss of energy and memory, and feelings of inadequacy, once thought to result from exhaustion of the nervous system. Now rare in scientific use. Also called "nervous breakdown".

Thank you for mentioning Nervousness.org. I went to check it out and really enjoyed myself there, looking around. If I had named it, I would probably have called it "Neurasthenia.net" Because I like the way the word rolls off the tongue, so much more richly than many currently used terms. It reminds ome of movies about psychiatric themes that were made in the 1940s and 50s, which both terrified and fascinated me.

Anyway, I digress.

If you decide you want to start a literary journal, I am game to help.

Re: Oh So Nervous

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

How nice of you! If I ever start a literary journal, I'll let you know.

Nervousness.org is a fair bit of fun. Its main "product" the Land Mail Art Object, is something I do not sign up for much, as I have never known 7 or 8 people in a mailing list to reliably mail anything (I must deal with lawyers all day).
The one to one art exchanges, though, are things I highly recommend. Postcardx, which is much simpler in format, is also fun. All these things get the "fair knock" that some of the work can be a bit "cute", but overall, it's a good time.
My work is rarely cute, but that's more a function of lack of craft skills rather than true artistic temperament :).

Re: Oh So Nervous

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

oh, and not to leave a turned stone unobserved, I am still chuckling over neurasthenia.org

Re: Oh So Nervous

[reneesarah.livejournal.com]

Oh God, can't help myself, I am a latent librarian:

Neurasthenia.net has been taken by Eric Raudenbush of Washington, D.C. He is apparently a Senior Attorney-Advisor for the Federal Housing Finance Board.

Neurasthenia dot com/ws also taken

dot info/bz/tv/cc/org and us still available.

There is nothing up at neurasthenia.net yet... I will have to check back and see what he does with it!