Poetry Hut Blog

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

Poetry News:

1. — Memoirist, poet and Book World contributor Mary Karr will be online Tuesday, June 17 at 3 p.m. ET to discuss her Poet’s Choice column, her best-selling 1995 memoir The Liars’ Club, and the joys, seductions and struggles of the writing life —
2. — On the Self Publishing Argument —
3. — where human thoughts seem to emanate from organic forms, and all is rendered in a poetry of jungle-like density where the chief pleasure is the texture of the language itself —
4. — He believed he had an excellent voice and would sing his own poems to helpless audiences who clapped in terror —
5. — ‘I embraced surrealism … and psychoanalysis, which closely abutted surrealism. Together, they represented what I wanted to do’. —
6. — Peter O’Leary digs deep into the Poetry magazine archive to uncover the origins of the Objectivist movement —
7. — Maybe vets of that great generation created a distance inside them that distanced their kids, a sadness that’s made for some great poems —
8. — A row has broken out in Portugal’s literary world over plans by heirs of the nation’s most famous modern poet —
9. — Call for donations —

Happy Father’s Day.

PHOTO IN THE NEWS: Rare Sea Dragon Father “Pregnant”. He looks Seussian.

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. — We are each a bundle of nervous impulses: to fidget, to gossip, to be distracted, to inquire, and especially to satisfy our scalding curiosity by looking at anything we’re told not to look at —
2. — Big is still best but not everything Americans do is supersized - a rich tradition of shorter verse percolates through to us today —
3. — Palestinian-American doctor turns suffering into song, wins top U.S. prize and a book review —
4. — Listen again: BBC censors Auden quip —
5. — The Economics Of Self-Publishing —
6. — National Poetry Award to go to VT and UVA professors —
7. — The author of three collections, Brock-Broido has been praised for poems that are “gorgeous and mournful, ornate and deeply felt” —

And the hits keep coming … hubby laid off from his 5 night a week gig at the swanky place. I guess people aren’t being swanky as much these days.

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.)