Home ~
Is it a
good idea to put your poetry here? My answer is an
emphatic Yes! This site accepts only previously published
poems, so there is no chance that your poems could be stolen (in other words,
your authorship has already been established). The internet is an
excellent place to gain readers. Even a widely published poet will be
known to only a small fraction of the public. Unless you have achieved a
high level of fame, it is unlikely that many book stores carry your books – and
we all know that the circulation of "little magazines" isn't what we would like
it to be. This site, on the other hand, is currently getting about 200
"hits" on the home page each day, which I estimate translates to 50-100 unique visitors
(some visitors return to the home page repeatedly). That may not sound
like much, but it is 1,500-3,000 visitors a month, 6,000-12,000 visitors a quarter, and
24,000-48,000 visitors a year, more than the circulation of most little magazines – and the number of
visitors keeps increasing. Not all of those visitors will make it to your
part of the site, but many of them will.
Are there any reasons not
to post your poems here, or on the internet in general? I have thought
about this quite a bit. If you've recently published a book and have a lot
of copies to sell, it isn't clear whether having, say, a dozen poems on this site
will help or hinder your book sales. It's possible that a few potential
buyers will be satisfied to read twelve of your poems and leave it at that, but
it's much more likely, I think, that a large sample of poems will whet a
reader's appetite for more. It all depends on how much the reader likes
your poems. I might add that many potential buyers won't even know
about your poems unless they can be found on the internet. Beyond book sales, the more readers a poet has, the better.
As Robert Francis said in the forward to his collected works, "every reader or
potential reader is dear to a poet". What are we trying to do if not to
communicate with as many people as we can? If you limit the distribution of your poems to small magazines
and printings of your books, you may reach 50,000 or 100,000 readers in your
life. On a site like this, you will get that many readers in a few
years.
What about putting your poems on
your own site? By all means, I encourage you to do so.
However, individual sites rarely get the traffic that large sites get.
In the same way that printed poetry anthologies sell better than books by individual poets, I
believe this site will always attract more readers than individual sites will.
How prestigious is this site?
The short answer is: not very. Very few web sites have much prestige
simply because the internet is a fluid medium which can't be quantified.
This site is
also the product of one individual rather than an organization, and as such it
would be considered a personal site, though certainly a comprehensive one. If you are looking for a credit on
your résumé, sites run by poetry organizations, such as the Academy of American
Poets (www.poets.org), will be more
impressive. The value of this site is that it gives
your poetry exposure in a tasteful setting. It's my hope, however, to make
this site an indispensable stop for poetry lovers on the web.
How poets
are selected for the site. Before accepting a poet for the site, I
like to see a selection of five to eight poems. If I find those poems to
be generally good (hopefully, excellent), I will ask the poet to send a larger
selection via e-mail (30 is a good number), out of which I will make the final
selection. On rare occasion I may invite a poet to select his or her own
poems. It's always nice to see a poet's books, but I understand that
copies are not always readily available.
What poems to
select. When sending me a selection of poems, I ask that you choose the best
of your work. This site is meant to be a showcase for good metered poetry,
the intention being to widen its popularity among the public, so it is important
that you put your best face forward on this site. The "best" of your work
isn't necessarily the most philosophical or complicated poems; poems on everyday themes are particularly welcome.
Some of the greatest poetry ever written has seemingly been the simplest.
Once a selection of your poems is on the site, I am always interested in seeing new work, and I hope you will continue to send me poems via e-mail. And if you would send me copies of your new books, that would make me particularly happy (I support this site entirely out of my own funds, and I can't afford to also buy every book published by every poet on the site). Whether you send new poems or not, I hope you will stay in touch.
Reviewer's
copies of books. I generally do
not return copies of books unless I am asked to do so. If you have sent me books that
you want back, please be sure that you have made that clear.
Why previously
published? Poems selected for
the site should be previously published. The reasons are simple. Although this is a quality site, it is not as prestigious as a literary
magazine. Once you place a poem on this site, the poem has (according to the
law) been published, and you cannot then send it to a magazine and claim that
it is an unpublished poem (well, you can, but the editor might have seen your
poem here). Thus, it is best to place your poem in a magazine and then
submit it to me – but not before the magazine has actually
appeared in print (a couple months after publication is even better). Placing your poem here
before it appears in print effectively "trumps" the magazine, invalidating the
magazine's copyright.
Copyrights.
For those few poems that are being published here for the first time, the copyright is retained by
the author, as well as all reprint rights.
Your right to
withdraw poems. Your poems are
posted on this site with your continuing consent. If at any time you decide
that you want your poems removed, you need only send me an e-mail. I hope,
however, that you won't do that.
Accompanying
graphics. When I insert poems
for the first time, I insert them with generic graphics (either the blue "Poem Tree" border
by Karen S. Nicholas,
or the green-leaf border by Grapholina), and then I insert
unique graphics later on. Selecting and inserting unique graphics for each
poem is time-consuming, and I don't always get to it immediately. If you feel that my taste
in graphics is too unsubtle, or that the graphics might detract
from the poems, please let me know and I will use muted graphics, or none at
all.
Publicizing the
site. Publicizing the site is my job, although it doesn't hurt for you
to recommend the site to others. Publicizing (publicization?) is a slow and unpleasant task,
and I don't do nearly as much of it as I should. As time passes, readership will increase.
It seems to be tripling every year.
Non-profit site. This
site is entirely non-profit. No fees are charged to poets or
readers. I do have an association with Amazon.com, but I have never made
any money from that association. I abrogated my agreement
with Amazon.com by not posting their logo on my home page, and for that reason I
would not be awarded any commissions even if I earned them.
In closing, thank you for letting me print your excellent poetry. My hope is that this site will increase the public's interest in poetry in general, and more specifically in your poetry.