May 2007
Does your blog or your participation in an online workshop jeopardize your future as a published poet? Are poems posted to personal blogs or workshopped on-line “previously published”?
Some editors believe so. It’s a question that matters to blogging poets everywhere. We’ve been exploring this topic over the last week or two and are very grateful for the time and energy many poetry magazine editors have taken to articulate their positions in this regard. As you will see from the input below, the editor community is divided on this topic.
So if you are a magazine editor, given the ambiguity and pervasiveness of this issue in the poetry blogosphere, please consider editing your submissions guidelines to state clearly where your publication stands on this point. If you would like to participate in the discussion by guest-blogging your own post, email me at nic_sebastian at hotmail dot com.
Related blog posts:
- Hey, magazine editors!
- Blog-posted poems redux
- Blog-posted poems again
- Definition of ‘publication’ & the importance of editors
- Blog-posted Poems. Includes link to suggestion for editors from Steve Schroeder.
- Go, qarrtsiluni! (22 Nov 07 – In which editors revise their policy and I revise my thinking.)
Publications that accept blog-posted poems:
- The Shit Creek Review (Editor’s comments) Guidelines updated May 2007 to reflect policy.
- Stirring
- Albatross
- Mimesis
- No Tell Motel (Editor’s comments)
- Lily (Editor’s comments) Guidelines updated May 2007 to reflect policy.
- Right Hand Pointing
- Hobble Creek Review
- Blue Fifth Review (Editor’s comments) Guidelines updated June 2007 to reflect policy.
- Barn Owl Review
- SmokeLong (Editor’s comments)
- Inch (Editor’s comments)
- Terrain
- qarrtsiluni (October 2007: Updated previous no-blog-posted-poems policy to allow poems that have appeared “in the author’s own blog, if the appearance was temporary or of an earlier draft.” For editors’ comments, scroll to bottom at this link.)
- the diagram: “We don’t republish work that has been printed elsewhere online or in print (personal websites excepted).”
Publications actively uninterested in blog-posted poems:
- Segue (Editor’s comments) Guidelines updated May 2007 to reflect policy.
- Apple Valley Review (Editor’s comments)
- Amarillo Bay
- Umbrella
- 2River (Related post) Guidelines updated June 2007 to reflect policy.
- Juked(Editor’s comments)
Blog-posted poems redux « Very Like A Whale said,
May 25, 2007 at 4:57 am
[...] started a standing page listing publications on each side of the debate here (link also in the standing page column to the left), with, where relevant, some additional remarks [...]
Sam Rasnake said,
June 1, 2007 at 1:57 pm
At Blue Fifth, I only accept unpublished works by writers. I have a notebook blog where I post drafts of poems, hoping to obtain comments. I may edit the works or leave as is, but I only keep the posted for five or six days, then remove them. I have had a several of those drafts accepted for publication – but those poems that have been accepted aren’t archived at my blogs. I don’t consider those poems to have been published simply because they appeared for a short time at my blogs.
'Blue Fifth Review' editor on blog-posted poems « Very Like A Whale said,
June 1, 2007 at 5:19 pm
[...] Sam also says (commenting here): [...]
Definition of ‘publication’ & the importance of editors « Very Like A Whale said,
June 2, 2007 at 7:51 am
[...] More on the blog-posted poems issue here. [...]
'Shit Creek Review' editor on blog-posted poems « Very Like A Whale said,
June 3, 2007 at 3:32 am
[...] More on the whole blog-posted poems issue here. [...]
Simmons said,
June 7, 2007 at 5:40 pm
You can add Terrain.org: A Journal of the Built & Natural Environments (www.terrain.org) to the list of journals that do accept/publish blog-posted poems, thanks.
verylikeawhale said,
June 8, 2007 at 4:07 am
Done. Thanks for stopping by! Nic
C. E. Chaffin said,
June 8, 2007 at 7:51 pm
I just ran into the blog publication issue recently. A poem was accepted by a paying journal, they googled me and found the poem at my blog. It did not queer the acceptance, but they did ask me to add a link to their magazine when the issue comes out. I thought that was polite and rational; I offered to strike it outright from my blog but the editor did not think that necessary. So, one reasonable solution– though I think to be safe, whenever you submit a blogged but otherwise unpublished poem you ought to erase it from your blog–unless it continues to live on in search engines for a while? This is another question to be answered. Thanks for your lists and raising this issue.
CE
Little Fury » Blog Archive » sorry I could not travel both said,
February 8, 2008 at 9:22 pm
[...] 2007 11:37 am Ross Bull City Press, Poetry Very Like a Whale has been sorting out all sides of the “previously published” debate for a week or two. When I stumbled across these threads this morning, I immediately blurted out my [...]
blog-posted poem? « Very Like A Whale said,
August 8, 2008 at 5:43 am
[...] Long-time readers of this blog will remember that I was much exercised by the question of blog-posted poems and their publication chances in the past. This tag pulls up most of the posts, I think and there’s a standing page on the topic here. [...]
Swimming with Tigers » What to do? said,
April 19, 2009 at 3:22 am
[...] seems that some publishers consider poetry posted on blogs as ‘previously published’ (1, 2). I guess for now I will refrain from posting new stuff — although any information on the [...]
Paul said,
June 5, 2009 at 5:57 am
Thanks for this. It’s an issue I have been trying to stir up for a long time. Having read all the responses from Editors who don’t accept work that has appeared in blogs, I think we can safely say that there is no valid reason for this. Most of the others merely say they agree with Eric from ‘Segue’ and Eric admits himself that his answer isn’t coherent. It is a very silly rule with no possible justification and thankfully it is gradually passing away.