ILM: non-shipped stuff
In addition to the sleazy practice of accepting absolutely anything, regardless of how mediocre it is, my complaint with the ILM (poetry.com) is simply that I order things from them that I never received.
Sometime in 2003, I submitted a poem to them (I forget the original date, I didn't know at the time that I should keeping very detailed records..) entitled "Love's Cold Hand". It was selected for publication (of course, it seems from what I've read now), and I was mailed a "pre-publication discount form" for the anthology in which it was to be published (I assume) sometime in 2003 or early 2004. I purchased this.
Later the poem was selected for a "Sound of Poetry" collection, which I also purchased, along with a plaque mounted version of the poem (a pretty shitty one too - the least they could do was use a computer controlled engraver to actually emboss in on a metal plate!). A few weeks later, the same poem was selected for the "Best Poets of 2003" anthology, which I also purchased. Then I was selected to win a $200 silver bowl (yeah, I bet) if only I would send them $169 because I would not be attending their conference (how sad..) I declined, no onto their scam.
So, to date, I have purchased the following from them:
1) An unknown-titled original 600+ page anthology
2) A "Sound of Poetry" collection
3) The plaque mounted version of the poem
4) The "Best Poets of 2003" anthology
To date, I have received 3 and 4. Item 2, which I paid for by check along with 3 on 7/31/03 (which I have a copy of), I have not received. Nor have I received the original item 1, which I paid for by check at some point in the past (I don't have a copy of that check, and my bank statements are a mess I just cleaned up, and two months are missing, but I'm sure the bank can get me a copy of the check, or at least a record of it's being cashed)
I am definitely going to ask my bank for confirmation of the cashing of the two checks to ILM, and send ILM a letter stating that I would like my money back for both items I have not received (considering it has been over 8 months), along (perhaps) with the little threat that if I don't hear back from them in writting within two weeks, I will contact my local Better Business Bureau (or is there a more threatening agency I can suggest like the office of Consumer Protection listed on stopILP.com).
I just cannot imagine how many people have been duped and swindled by these people.. Especially perhaps little kids, and their oh-so-doting parents with the money..
God, it makes me sick.. Although, noone really knows how much the ILP actually makes (there are estimates), and how much they give out in prizes, setting up the convention, etc.. That would all come out in the discovery phase I imagine.
BTW, the two poems I submitted (first one selected, second one selected "sight unseen"), are not exactly bad poems. I haven't asked any writing professor about these specifically, but I did take a poetry class (long after I started writing poetry), and a teacher of mine read one and said I must be descended from Don Juan (I think he was exaggerating a *bit* there). I also check the database of poetry.com, and I don't show up as an author, and I got back a number of database errors. So not only do they swindle money from people, they don't pay their ASP programmers enough..
Here are the poems: (C) James Witte, 1996-2004
Love's Cold Hand - ca. March 2002
(in the tradition of E. Spencer, but not nearly as good, no ryming,a nd the scansion could be better I think.)
Stayed by Love's cold hand,
Unknowing what to do or say
I gaze cautiously with warm longing,
Turning as ice melts to fire.
We move in different circles,
Of this be not ashamed.
But I take this chance, forsaking all,
That together we might still be.
For Saith Love, “My arms, I have two,
One cold as ice in the deep of Winter's sadness
Stayed by doubt and fear,
The other warm as the embers remaining
After the Heart has burned before.”
Paths of Old
(This is the worse of the two, as it's a combination of two poems that seemed to work together. It definitely needs revision. It was written as a kind of addendum to Loreena Mckennitt's "The Two Trees" [English translation] on her CD "The Mask and Mirror")
Endless questions, my thoughts
Like leaves in a breeze swirling to and fro.
What do I feel and what does it matter
If what I do now affects all tomorrow?
Forgotten tomorrows like threads on a loom,
How I feel, where I go, what do these weave
For my future? A web across the bower between
Two trees, one of hope, the other of restless uncertainly
And the space between flooded with light
Yet my own path dark before me.
The path I thought I'd left behind haunts me still,
Shadows of the past rising again, echoing pain of ages gone.
I yearn for sun beyond the paths I trod
But sun is not in this place, I fear may never be
Until I pass those ways again.
Oh, bring me my forgotten ways,
Memories of childhood though.
My God above, let me be with one again
In whom I saw in times of old
That I could not explain then, but yearn for now
Safe passage through my dark night again.
Jim