Big
business, bad poetry
We
ask are Irish poets really getting what they
think they are from an internet based company?
IN
RECENT months Southside People has received phone calls
from local poets who have been published by a company
in America.
They
have been invited to conferences in the US and offered
places in international poetry competitions.
The Maryland based International Library of Poetry or
poetry.com invites poets to send or e-mail a poem for
appraisal. When the poem is received they usually offer
to publish it and ask poets to pay for a copy of the
book in which it appears.
The ILP claims to publish only a fraction of the poems
they receive after carefully reading and discussing
them. Yet poets seem to get identical letters of acceptance
with similar praise and a place as a semi-finalist in
their poetry competition.
Some Irish poets are dubious as to whether every published
poem is vetted and question if a genuine service is
really being offered to aspiring poets.
Southside People set out to find the answer.
We sent an original four line poem, written in two minutes
and of dubious merit, to the International Library of
Poetry.
Stepaside
Words like rain on leaves drip from your lips,
They puddle at my feet to join my tears.
Autumn has arrived and you
Are leaving me in Stepaside.
We
also asked Poetry Ireland, the national organisation
dedicated to developing, supporting and promoting poetry
in Ireland, to take a look at the poem and assess it
for us.
A month after submitting to ILP, a letter of acceptance
arrived from them congratulating us for our unique talent
and artistic vision. It said that we should be genuinely
proud of our accomplishment and that our poem would
add to the importance of their next anthology, ‘Eternal
Portraits’.
It announced that the poem would be entered as a semi
finalist into their competition with a chance of winning
up to e10,000.
We were also invited to an international convention
and symposium in Orlando Florida.
The letter said: “imagine your poem featured on
a page by itself in a beautiful coffee-table edition.”
There then follows a sales pitch describing the soon-to-be
published ‘Eternal Portraits’.
However, the letter was at pains to point out that we
were under no obligation to pay any money but if we
wanted to acquire a copy of the book we would have to
pay e44.45. A further e22.50 would be charged to include
biographical details and e10 per book would be added
for shipping. That’s a total of e77.45.
Over 200 poems are included in every anthology and the
website boasts entries from 51,000 poets. Even if only
half of the entrants bought a copy of the book they’ve
been published in, ILP would make over e19m.
They can also earn a registration fee of e530 from everyone
who signs up for one of their conventions. The charge
does not cover flights or accommodation which poets
must arrange themselves.
Copies of previously published anthologies by ILP are
available on Amazon.com. Some of those reviewed there
carry a note of warning to poets from people who believe
they have been burned by the company.
There are also websites which discuss the merits of
the service offered by ILP such as daypoems.com, poetrynot.com
and poetsscam.com.
We contacted ILP to ask them about their service but
were told that any queries had to submitted in writing
and – surprisingly for a website based company
– they could not accept questions by e-mail, only
by regular post.
Joseph Woods, Director of Poetry Ireland, also looked
at the poem for us and did not quite see the artistic
vision found by ILP.
“The
nature analogies and the tears are a bit heavy and bordering
on the daft, “ Mr Woods said. “Stepaside and
arrived are forced rhymes and are a bit strong considering
there aren’t any rhymes to balance with in the
first two lines.
“The
whole thing has the feeling of being a bit rushed!”
Mr Woods said that Poetry Ireland has been approached
by many people looking for help toward the cost of attending
one of ILP’s conventions.
“We
had a South African man in here asking Poetry Ireland
to pay for his flight,” he said. “I spent
half an hour explaining what ILP is really about but
he still didn’t believe me.”
Mr Woods believes ILP preys upon people who are writing
poetry but aren’t necessarily reading poetry.
“It
discourages people too because they are promised something
that isn’t real and then great things don’t
happen so they give up.”
He said that the simple rule with poetry is never pay
to get it published.
“Smaller
publications or journals may not pay you, but they will
usually supply a free copy of their book or journal,”
he said. “You should never pay them.”
His tips for aspiring poets include reading.
“You
would be surprised how many people write poetry but
never read it,” he said. “Some people send
us perfect 17th century poems on the twin towers. They
need to read contemporary poetry and contemporary journals
of poetry.”
He also advises that writers should try to place individual
poems before looking to have a collection published.
“A
poetry editor won’t look at a collection unless
single poems have been published first,” he said.
“Send six poems to magazines and include an SAE
because a lot of small journals can’t afford the
cost of rejection slips and often the editor is doing
the work for free.”
He said that poetry is not a big mystery.
“Join
a local writers’ group and talk to other people
who are writing,” he advises. “Never believe
friends who say your work is brilliant but know nothing
about poetry and never get defeated by rejection.”
Poetry Ireland run a website with advice on writing
and making submissions. It also contains a useful list
of journals, magazines and poetry publishers.
For further information visit www.poetryireland.ie.
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