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William Haskins

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i've seen it.

more power to them, but i find the focus on commodification unappealing.
 
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CassandraW

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I'm turned off immediately by this:

1 - It’s really important that I pay attention to how I’m being financially compensated for my work. Doing so gives me a greater feeling of self-worth and an overall reminder that, well, poetry has value.

Yeah, well, good luck with that. Financial compensation has shit to do with the worthiness of your work, and I say that as a goddamn lawyer.

I've been paid a fortune for mind-numbing work that in the end has little effect on human beings and was forgotten by pretty much everyone as soon as the case was over.

The best and most rewarding thing I ever did as a lawyer was to get an innocent man out of jail -- a year's worth of work I did for free. It landed me and my client on the front page of the New York law journal, and got me a chapter in a book on exonerated prisoners. It changed that man's life forever, and no doubt that of many people connected to him. But I didn't make a penny from it.

Every day, people are churning out idiotic, ill-written, regurgitated top ten lists on how to hack their life, and I've no doubt they're getting paid for it. And I'm not complaining about that -- we all must make a living. But does that make their articles more worthwhile than a great poem that gets published for free or for a token pittance?

Many great artists have died in poverty and obscurity, their work only recognized as genius after they died. Was it worthless at the time they produced it?

Money is a fine and indeed essential thing, but it has no connection to the value of art.

ETA:

cross-posted with William, who said pretty much the same thing more succinctly. I felt compelled to rant.
 
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Smirkin

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Hmm good points and of course I agree money means nothing about worth. However I admit that as someone who's only published one poem, the little check made the publication feel sweeter, or more legitimate in some way. I mean that it made ME feel like a "real" poet, not that my poem itself was somehow worth more than any other poem. I'm completely sure this is a common rookie point of view, due to a lack of familiarity with the world of paying and non-paying markets, and also to my own insecurities of whether by not publishing I am therefore not a real writer.
 

Smirkin

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And I'm also sure this is itself a form of procrastination
 

CassandraW

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I haven't yet tried to submit any of my poems to publications, paying or otherwise. I may do so, just because it would be fun to get them into wider circulation and have more people reading them. One of my poems (hospice, now in Chapbook) is being used in a hospice staff training program, which pleases me very much. (And no, I did not get paid, nor did I ask to get paid.)

Also, to be entirely cynical, I am well aware that a publication credit makes others evaluate one's worth as a writer more highly, which could come in handy when and if I begin submitting my novel and other work.

It will not, however, make my work one jot more (or less) "valuable" -- any more than getting paid for my pro bono work would have made it more valuable, or than the bit of media coverage I got made it more valuable. The work and results were inherently valuable, and nothing could add or detract from that.

ETA:

For me, if it were to come down to a choice between getting paid and doing a revision to the poem that (in my opinion) compromised it, I'd elect to leave it unpublished every time.

If it came down to a choice between getting paid for placing my work in a journal that was otherwise filled with poems I did not admire, or getting it published in a non-paying journal I did admire, I would place it in the non-paying journal every time.

Getting paid for a poem would be a hoot. But it wouldn't make me feel like more of a poet.

And that's lucky for me, because it is pretty damn unlikely any of us are going to make very much money in poetry.
 
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Smirkin

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The idea of my poem being used in a hospice setting or any kind of useful place like that would be infinitely more gratifying than a publication paycheck, you're absolutely right about that! I guess publication is just a club I've been wanting to join for a while. But it's true, paying or non-paying shouldn't be much of a distinction.
 

CassandraW

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The use of my poem for that training program means more to me than I can express. The poem is my expression of my grief for my father, and it pleases me very much that it is helping hospice staff empathize with and console grieving family and friends.

And by the way -- that happened because of AW. One of our AW mods has a daughter who runs a hospice training program. He showed her the poem, and she thought it would be a perfect way to give hospice staff some insight into how grieving loved ones are feeling.

I don't mean to put down the ambition of getting things published. I'd like to be published myself. The only thing I have a problem with is tying the inherent value of work to the amount of money it brings in -- I do not think there is any connection.

I will take a single line of sincere praise from someone whose opinion I respect over a check, any day.
 

kborsden

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I agree that monetary compensation != actual worth/value, but also that it depends on what measuring stick you use. In terms of how much a publication pays, it really depends on how much said publication can afford to pay out. Publications have varying financial models: some are self funded via sales/subscriptions/donations, others by arts councils or grants. In many cases, the reputation of an accepting outlet in your publication creds weighs more than their pay rate :) none of that accounts for the intrinsic value of the poetry though. Think also that publications also vary in the type of poetry they publish, avant garde, formal, free verse, rhyming, etc they each have a specific flavour and preference that doesn't necessarily reflect the quality of your poem--also editors are human, and thus also have individual opinions on what is or isn't suitable for their publication. What's good for one may not be for another.

I write a lot of commissioned poetry nowadays, against varying levels of remuneration depending mostly on who's requested it. It's my time that's being compensated though, not a sale of work or explicit value attached to it. For example, a £10 poem for a christening is by no means a better poem than a free one for a charity organised event; neither of those worth any more or less than any one of a £300 set of 12 for a publication. The fee is only representative of a mutually agreed level of payment for work to be provided--a business agreement for the provisioning of a product vs time and effort. It may sound odd, but the two really do need to be comparmentalised and viewed as wholly separate entities. The value of poetry is an intangible thing that will fluctuate from person to person... the value of its provision can be agreed against a semi-static monetary exchange. Using money as a yard stick by this rationale actually makes the value of poetry significantly less than a week's work at MacDonald's... like I said only when we divide out the two entities can we put any value on either: one highly subjective and unique to each individual, the other as agreed per pre-determined financial and continuity factors.
 
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Smirkin

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I do like the distinction that it's the poet's time, not the actual worth of the words, that is being compensated.

All in all, I fully see the error of my initial intrigue here. Thanks to all who helped enlighten me :)
 

William Haskins

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there was no error, just a nice little discussion to be had. thanks for posting it.
 

kborsden

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gettingby

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I don't know what everyone's complaining about. I think it sounds like an interesting experiment. And the author of this blog is some who is a poet professionally. I'm in an MFA program. I know this world. Though I go for fiction, I have many poet friends and know the professors, who are in every sense poets. And these guys are being published in both places that pay and don't pay. For me, personally, where is more important than how much.

I decided to take a poetry class at the graduate level, and it's no joke. I feel like we are supposed to be poets this semester. And we don't just read poetry, we consider it. We talk about it. We read it aloud. I have never read so much poetry in my life. If I can't sleep, I play Stein's Tender Buttons on youtube. It's a little intimidating and really tough. As we are reading the greats and the contemporaries, we are producing our poetry. But I'm loving the experience. Every day I write a new poem. Out of those one goes through a week-long revision. And I read. But I think I'm starting to get a real for it. As a reader. God, I kind of suck as a poet. And that's after hours of revision. I haven't gotten the best feedback.

But we're all up against the people who have dedicated their lives to poetry and are true masters. That's who's getting a couple hundred bucks for a poem. It means something, sure. Their great works are showcased in outstanding places with long-standing histories. I have subscriptions to a lot of literary journals. I want to see poetry in those that seems better than anything I can find online or on my own. That's a lot of pressure for a journal. I'm only going to subscribe to so many. And if it wasn't a good year, I'll subscribe somewhere else.

So, if you are a big-time magazine and have a reputation to uphold, of course, you should pay your poets. I'm going to go back and read more of her blog.
 

Kylabelle

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It's a fun blog to read; lots of poets are posting about their process with submitting, and with writing, and about how they feel about compensation. I've enjoyed the view into their lives and work. It's fun to compare my own process with theirs, too. (I currently have fifteen pieces out on submission, some to contests with monetary prizes but most to non-paying markets.)
 

CassandraW

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I don't know what everyone's complaining about.

No one is "complaining" about a poet getting paid. To the extent I am "complaining," I am complaining about equating how much a poet is paid (if anything) for a poem with how good the poem is. By that yardstick, the clichéd drivel on a typical Hallmark card is worth more than Thorn Forest -- an idea I reject utterly.

If you value your poetry by how much you are paid for it, you are more than likely doomed to feel miserable about it.
 
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gettingby

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No one is "complaining" about a poet getting paid. To the extent I am "complaining," I am complaining about equating how much a poet is paid (if anything) for a poem with how good the poem is. By that yardstick, the clichéd drivel on a typical Hallmark card is worth more than Thorn Forest -- an idea I reject utterly.

If you value your poetry by how much you are paid for it, you are more than likely doomed to feel miserable about it.

I'm just saying there is a connection between how good a poem is worth and how much a magazine is willing to pay for it. I know that there are exceptions, but a lot a really good places pay their writers. A poem that brings is $300 is probably going to be a very good poem. I say this as someone who has been obsessed with literary journals for years. And, usually, I am quite blown away by many of the writers in them.

What I didn't understand was why anyone would get upset over this blog. I only submit my work to places with solid reputations and a lot of those places are paying their writers. If my stuff is any good, something will eventually get picked up. I'm not going to submit my work to places that might be easier to get into. Like I said, where is important to me.

And if a poet wants to only send her work out to paying markets and compare her experience to when she wasn't paying as much attention to finical incentives, I see nothing wrong with that.

When you say things like you would never do edits that compromised your work, you make it sound like people are confronted by choices like this all the time, and they're not. Edits are to make a piece stronger, and a good editor can help a writer do this. But most of the time it's just going to be a flat yes or no from the editor. And most of the time it's going to be a no.

This woman, probably an already widely published poet, wanted to check something. I think this was a great idea for a blog. She's not selling her soul or compromising her ethic. She simply trying to get paid for her poetry.
 

CassandraW

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I don't think you've correctly characterized my opinions, but feel free to take them any way you wish.
 

skelly

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I've sold quite a bit of poetry in my chosen genre over the last 30 some-odd years and I have never once been asked to make changes. My experience has been that, at least where it concerns poetry, they buy it or they don't. There's no "I'd buy this if..."
 

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Gettingby, I think you need to reread most comments in this thread. No one is upset by the blog; no one is complaining.

As for journals needing better than you can find elsewhere, or online, Poe can be read online, Frost can be read online, for free... you can read my poetry in over a hundred different journals, some obscure, others not so--each having paid me their going rate, does that make my poetry better than Frost's, or Poe's? Speaking of Poe, do you know how much money he earned for the Raven? Have a guess...

The reputation is certainly a weightier factor than how much. Poetry Wales and Ennoi are 2 of Britains oldest and still running literary journals--very highly regarded; they're non paying, but god if you want your work in them, be prepared to wait months for a response.
 

poetinahat

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Yeah, I'd have to agree that disagreeing =/= complaining.

More power to you if you're getting paid for your poems - cash is one of many forms of recognition of a poem's value or worth. It sounds like everyone's agreeing that it's not the only form, and typically not the yardstick for quality; more than that, for many, it's not relevant. Nevertheless, it's good when it happens, and why not celebrate getting paid.

This reminds me of a Fernwood 2Night clip, where Martin Mull is introducing Tom Waits: "I hear he makes half a million big ones in one year. . . . In my book, that spells talent!"
 

poetinahat

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The best and most rewarding thing I ever did as a lawyer was to get an innocent man out of jail -- a year's worth of work I did for free. It landed me and my client on the front page of the New York law journal, and got me a chapter in a book on exonerated prisoners. It changed that man's life forever, and no doubt that of many people connected to him. But I didn't make a penny from it.

Just quoting this because it is excellent. Would that we all made a difference like you have.
 

CassandraW

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Thank you, Rob. I admit, I'm proud of that.

But back to poetry -- I cannot resist adding: $300 is, as we all know, more than most poets will ever be paid for a poem these days. But frankly? Even that comparatively princely sum is a pittance when one considers the work and skill level that go into writing a good poem

I generally spend many hours, perhaps days, working on a poem. As a lawyer, I can get paid $300 in well under an hour for dictating a dull routine letter a couple of paragraphs long or listening in on some tiresome conference call. Surely, whatever your field, there are far more efficient (and more certain) paths to earning $300 -- much less the $10-$25 I've heard mentioned as a more common level of payment.

If I'm looking at financial returns, writing poetry makes no sense at all -- I will never retire on the proceeds of poetry. Perhaps, if I get very lucky indeed, I'd be able to eventually take all of my fellow poetry forumites out to dinner at Applebees, assuming none of you drink and we get one dessert and twenty forks.

Poetry, these days especially, is something one does for love rather than money. Yes, it would be great fun to get a check now and then. But as for me, I don't think a check for $300 would make me feel nearly as good as a word or two of praise from someone whose work I admire.

Me, I put every poem out there just hoping someone will enjoy it or relate to it or see the craft I put in, and care enough to tell me so. But even without that, I'd be writing it, because that is what I do. If I thought getting paid for it was important, I'd have chucked it long ago.

Eta:

The fact that someone is willing to pay for your poem is wonderful. It proves that someone out there liked it enough to pay for it. Bravo! But that's all it says. The fact that no one paid you for your poem does not necessarily say much of anything about its quality. A poem that someone paid $300 is not necessarily better than one that did not earn such a sum. (Especially since many fine poets are not submitting their works to such publications.) It's one yardstick you can use for value, I suppose, but in my opinion, it's not a very good one, especially for poetry.
 
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