Poetry Hut Blog
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Poetry News:

1. — Amy Newman uses short, verses to show the theorist of evolution struggling to absorb its implications for his private life —
2. — We love independent filmmakers and musicians, and celebrate their maverick spirit, so why don’t we want independent writers? —
3. — Margaret Atwood wins Spain’s top literature prize —
4. — G. E. Murray 1945~2008 —
5. — Power of poem immortalizes Cubs trio —
6. — Taking another look at Idaho’s most famous poet/conspiracy theorist —
7. — The lit mag reviews at NewPages are fresh —
8. — Amazon’s Vanishing Buy-Now Buttons, Revealed —

Can you think of any poems that, when you take away the title, completely fall apart? For example, this poem by Dan Pagis (translated by Stephen Mitchell):

Written in Pencil in the Sealed Railway-Car

here in this carload
i am eve
with abel my son
if you see my other son
cain son of adam

tell him that i

Hi — an announcement

My first book of poetry, Trouble And Honey, is available for purchase at Lulu.com for a special recession-rate of $7.77. And if you live overseas, why not take advantage of the crappy fiat US dollar hahaha?

The book is also available as a PDF file, for free. This is an experiment. (My baseball poems free chapbook PDF has been downloaded just over 2,500 times so far, BTW. I’m sure that has everything to do with the subject matter.) The PDF of Trouble And Honey is genuinely free without any Read the rest of this entry »

Since my last post regarding this topic:

1. The Washington (state) Atty General has said “talk to the  hand  Feds.”

2. The National Writers Union (I am a member - they are UAW Local 1981 btw] has called for Justice Dept. and Congressional investigations.

3. AuthorHouse and Lulu.com have caved, though I can’t find any official announcement about Lulu.com.

Given the state of the Justice Department these days, the US Government’s servile toadying to Corporations, and the fact that Congress was pretty much elected so they would end the Iraq War and yet … therefore I, for one, welcome our new BookSurgian overlords.

I’m still not buying anything from Amazon.

Not a lot of blogging is taking place about this issue lately, but here’s an article from Publishers Weekly:
Amazon: Friend or Foe?.

Poetry News:

1. — There is little that can make us as acutely conscious of the fact that we are still alive as being shown the body of someone who is dead —
2. — Start a Notebook on Poets.org - 30 Ways To Celebrate National Poetry Month —
3. — “if anything the poem and video are poking fun at a stereotype of libertarianism” —
4. — In recent years, the splendid American poet Elizabeth Bishop has undergone both a canonization and a demystification —
5. — Lighght Verse —
6. — The poem that saved a terribly English spy from death in Dublin —
7. — Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott is one of the great mongrels of American poetry, serving as a singular melting pot for a variety of traditions —
8. — Detroit Tiger Haikus —
9. — Fewer people may be reading, but everywhere you turn, Americans are sounding their barbaric yawps over the roofs of the world, as good old Walt Whitman, himself a self-published author, once put it —

My brother Jason has posted a bunch of word games / word puzzles on his blog.

I posted some links last week regarding Amazon.com’s attempt to force publishers to use Amazon’s BookSurge print-on-demand service. Or the book won’t be available for sale on Amazon. I think Amazon took some non-BookSurge POD book’s “buy” buttons off, too. Is that still the case? My friend Scott’s book is only available through the used book interface now.

Evidently, most (all?) print-on-demand services (other than BookSurge) use Lightning Source to actually print the book. Lightning Source is a subsidiary of Ingram Book Group, which is a local (to me) Nashville company. (The printing biz is big in Nashville.)

I find it strange that I haven’t seen any local media stories about this, since Ingram is such a large local company (and the family is so prominent in the community). Unless I missed any mainstream media articles about this, the only local attention this has gotten is from some well-respected local bloggers — Rex Hammock & Newscoma. I guess POD is small potatoes in the business world.

POD & the WWW are 2 of the main reasons that I think that, for American poetry, this is one of the most exciting periods of time, ever. OK, I understand that hardly anyone buys poetry books these days, but for those of us who do, whoo boy, is there a groaning table.

An overview of why this sucks so much for small publishers.

A more detailed analysis of how this would affect a small poetry publisher.

And in the “first they came for POD” department: Newspapers, magazines, press syndicates, not just e-book and POD publishers, should beware of Amazon’s lock-ins.

So what can you do about it? Here are some ideas:

There are contact addresses here, so you can tell Amazon to quit bogarting POD distribution.

Boycott them & quit generating revenue for Amazon.com via your websites.

The Authors Guild is seeking input that will help them move forward with legal plans because of Amazon’s possible violation of antitrust laws.

This article suggests that the California Attorney General would be most interested in Amazon’s business practices.

(I still plan on using Lulu.com to publish my poetry manuscript this year.)

Poetry News:

1. — The 5-minute Interview: Felix Dennis, publisher and author —
2. — Poetry workshop: David Morley finds variety and accomplishment in equal measure in the nature poetry prompted by his March poetry ‘field trip’ —
3. — First mantra of the Rig Veda is the first known poem in the world —
4. — 2008 is the 120th anniversary year of poet T. S. Eliot’s birth —
5. — For many career lawyers, poetry isn’t simply a weekend hobby; it’s a second calling —
6. — Are Smart People Drawn To The Arts Or Does Arts Training Make People Smarter? —
7. — Telegraph.co.uk’s week-long series celebrating the great poets of the English canon —

I’m going to Lulu.com my poetry manuscript. I don’t want to have my poems checked for dingleberries - I don’t like the contest system.

I need some help with the cover. If you are an artist & are interested, please email me. I can’t pay much, because of my medical bills.

Also, if you have any advice re: lulu.com layouts — fonts, etc — so the book doesn’t look stupid, that would be appreciated.

Thanks.

If you link to Poetry Hut Blog & I don’t have a link back to you let me know & I will add your site to the blogroll if it is reasonably up-to-date.

Go visit some interesting people you haven’t met yet:

Poetry News:

1. — “Poem for My Daughter Disparaging the Gossamer Depictions of the Women of Certain Southern Texts” By Adrian Blevins and a sh*tstorm of criticism LOL. Sheesh. If I ever start subbing poems again remind me to NOT send to Slate. Gee whiz. —
2. — The first reading on this program, “What is Poetry,” is an excerpt from Debra Weinstein’s novel Apprentice to the Flower Poet Z, and touches on both creative ambition and pretension [MP3] —
3. — State looks for a new poet laureate —
4. — The Poem as Comic Strip #5 —
5. — Through five collections of poetry, a short story collection and a nonfiction book, the author has celebrated the overlooked, the commonplace, the tossed-aside … —
6. — Literary self-publishing and comic self-publishing are perceived very differently —
7. — Amazon, Borders Launch Literary Contests [fiction only] —

I am rapidly losing hope. After such a joyful beginning, I now don’t believe that we will be able to change anything.

The post- post- post- post- generation.

I have a website, www.thewordvine.com, that I hope to launch in September. The Word Vine is going to be a (free) site where DIY publishers, micropresses and the like can sign up and sell their stuff, commiserate, etc. Right now it is just a placeholder website.

I’m still working on it, but each store can sell through its own paypal account or a Lulu.com account if it exists. The site will have the usual ecommerce functionality - visitors can browse inventory site-wide and there is one secure shopping cart/checkout for the whole site. Each store will have it’s own storefront and admin area.

It’s going to be free, because I’m such a freaking idealist, but I’ll have it set up so you can donate to me so maybe I can recoup the couple hundred dollars it has cost so far. I don’t care about the time, but I do have surgery bills that could have used the couple hundred dollars, LOL.

Thanks to those of you that responded to my DIY publishing poll from before.

I need some beta testers if you would like to participate. You’ll need inventory and a paypal account and/or a lulu.com account. I’ll probably start that testing process in August.