[New-Poetry] RECONFIGURATIONS: A Journal for Poetics & Poetry /Literature & Culture

Mon Nov 19 19:02:23 EST 2007

Ditto. On all counts. I'm never worried about a glut of the bad at the
expense of missing the good (or god, or monkey or pig). What the mimeo did
for NY poets in the 1960s p.o.d. does now: streamlines, makes accessible.
The only difference, some p.o.d. books are discernibly lovely objects: well
produced and intelligently and artistically designed textually. 

One discovers the good the old fashion way. Word of mouth (as, virtually, on
this list) and, maybe, reviews by those whose judgment you trust.

I've keep finding so much good that I know I'll never be done with it. Too
late to try to read it all. But that's only a cause for despair if one has a
scholar's (bibliographical) temperament. Otherwise, it's 95% terrific.

(Maybe everyone will become poets?)

-----Original Message-----
From: new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu
[mailto:new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu] On Behalf Of amy king
Sent: Monday, November 19, 2007 3:05 PM
To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp,Views
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] RECONFIGURATIONS: A Journal for Poetics & Poetry
/Literature & Culture

And thank god (or dog or monkey) there are so many publishing options now
that have forced the "either/or" argument to fade into the background.
Poetry's merit shouldn't be based on what press invested what money into
what book and spent money promoting it where any longer.  Hasn't that model
produced as much boring or "bad" or irrelevant poetry as "good"?  As well as
*not* produced some fine poetry ...

I love books published by those who continue to make fine books, though I
tend to see the book as more of an object and investment and am fearful of
handling ... they don't ride the subway with me.  But I also love self-made
projects like the Dusie Chapbook Collective, where folks can put as much or
as little into creating and distributing their chaps as they like.  I've
rec'd some wonderfully-crafted  "objects" with not-so-exciting poetry, and
I've rec'd some slap-dash-made books that house words that take the top of
my head off. 

Small press and POD books seem to be as reviewed now as the big name
publishers' wares - they also are distributed and rank on the top bookstore
websites - the playing field is leveling a bit ...

Cheers,
Amy

jforjames at aol.com wrote:

Jason, what does "'our' kind of work" mean here? Is there 'blazeVOX school'
or are you identifying yourself as Post-Avant?

It doesn't seem that POD will have any exclusivity about it...it's going to
be way to go for poets of almost every flavor. Desktop
publishing led to the proliferation of small poetry publishers and now POD
makes it cheaper for those publishers to put out more books. 
Easier for poets to bypass presses/editors altogether, if they choose to.

In the shadow of these tech advances, there are still a fair number of fine
letter press publishers out there. Doing just a few books or 
broadsides per year, printing them on machines that haven't be made in over
50 years... and some of the machines much older than that. 
Handsetting type with great care, sewing together the pages, etc. There is
something admirable about a publisher who would do that
to put another person's poems into the world. Adastra Press in Easthampton
MA, run by Gary Metras, is one of those retro-operation
whose work I've cherished over the years. 

Finnegan 

-----Original Message-----
From: Jason Quackenbush <jfq at myuw.net>
Bcc: jforjames at aol.com
Sent: Sun, 18 Nov 2007 12:25 am
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] RECONFIGURATIONS: A Journal for Poetics & Poetry /
Literature & Culture

It's good to see Geoff's efforts getting attention. He's published a couple
of things of mine that I had previously come to the conclusion no one was
going to take a chance on. blazeVOX is possibly the most important press and
journal of "our" kind of work right now and it's good that people are
reading it. 

The link has an interesting discussion of POD that I think hit's all the
right notes. I'm planning on self-publishing a book of poetry soon as a sort
of tribute to Tender Buttons and I intend to use a POD service to do it.
That article really captured a lot of the fears I have about going that
route rather than trying to find a more traditional publisher, but at the
same time, I like the fact that there's a link between this sort of thing
and the xeroxed "little" magazines that were so important to the poets I
take to be my aesthetic forebears in the sixties and seventies. 

amy king wrote: 
> 
> *BlazeVOX and the Publishing Practices of the Post-Avant 
> 
> * 
> 
>
http://reconfigurations.blogspot.com/2007/11/jlyn-chapman-blazevox-and-publi
shing.html 
> 
> 
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