yikes

August 24, 2008 at 7:00 pm (publication)

Why does anyone bother?

3 Comments

  1. Scavella said,

    August 25, 2008 at 3:17 pm

    Well, just because.

    Reply

  2. Rik said,

    August 25, 2008 at 6:45 pm

    It validates them.

    Apparently.

    To be honest, if I ever get a craving for validation, I just go and ask my Mum for some: she’s good at that sort of thing. Though I don’t show her my poems – validation is part of the mother/son contract, but she claims she struck out the clause about liking all my artistic endeavours before I drew my first breath.

    Reply

  3. Rob said,

    August 25, 2008 at 7:35 pm

    It’s a way of getting your poems to a wider audience than if you don’t publish. Not much wider, as Quincy says, but wider nonetheless. You become part of a conversation and make links with other published poets. You become part of a stable depending on who puts out your book. You become eligible for certain awards.If you’re very lucky, you might even win one of them. If you’re luckier still you might become well known and able to get several thousand dollars for a reading in front of hundreds of people.

    Poems seek readers and books are one way of getting them – not the only way, but still an important one. If no one published, or even read, my stuff, I would still write it, but there would always still be that itch in me to get it out there just to see if someone somewhere would pick up on it.

    Reply

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