we had to do it; personal credits:

[billy]

post em here.

links to works you had published. you may get praise, we may revile you. sj may fap over it but this is the that place to show your shit.

[Leanne]

No glory hounds?

I love this place

[billy]

i've had a lot of stuff published in my local newspaper back in the uk, usually, stories given by the police or judiciary

[Leanne]

The way I look at it, publishing is the final step -- over and done with. Once it's published, I want nothing more to do with it -- it's the past, and I'm more interested in concentrating on the present.

[billy]

i think for many, having a poem published is an achievement. and if it's decent poem; something to be proud of.

[Leanne]

I'm proud of other people who manage it. I love to hear of fellow writers doing well. I'd hazard a guess that most don't hate their poems the way I do.

[penguin]

People sometimes asked me "Are you a published poet?" And to cut a long story short I usually just said no, because they invariably meant has your work appeared in a poetry magazine. Mine hasn't and I have no interest in putting it forward for many reasons. But I am a betting man and the notion of winning hundreds or thousands of pounds for a few quid appeals very much. So I enter a poetry competition now and then. Last year I entered a couple of poems in the Hippocrates Prize, each got Commended and I won £100 - the first prize is £5000!
A few weeks later I'm reading The Guardian and come across an article about the competeition by Mark Lawson, who was one of the judges. In it he mentioned one of my poems by name as an example of something or other.Just a few weeks ago I received an email from someone at The British Journal of Psychiatry asking for permission to reprint my other poem in their magazine. So when folks ask me now "Are you a published poet?", I say yes but only in The Guardian and The BJP.

[billy]

the BJP

blow job poetry


when i started out i wanted to be a good enough poet to be published but it didn't take long for the dawn to let me know it wouldn't happen i can appreciate the sense of satisfaction one would get from being published.

does being published on facebook count

[Erthona]

If my poem was selected
I wondered what was wrong with it?
They only publish crap
things with mass appeal.
I don't want to write
poetry with mass appeal.
What appeals to the masses
is easy an orgasm.
I don't like people
cumming in my hand.


Dale

[penguin]

Billy.
But what counts as being published? Does it have to be in a literary mag? How many times? I've seen some very mediocre poems in my time whose authors have been able to reel off a list of magazines they've been published in. Not that I've ever checked! I just don't think it's that hard there being so many mags printed and online.

Dale.
Can one speak of masses in relation to poetry? For the masses poetry implies regular rhyme and metre. You'll do well to spot many such poems in modern poetry mags or winning poetry competitions. They are fashion-led, they publish what's in vogue or what they think is in vogue. Almost all these magazines have what amounts to a Mission Statement - they want innovative, cutting edge poetry which pulls no punches, which engages the reader....and they all print the same type of poem over and over again - the poem as novel, prosetry as it has been named. Now I don't mind prosetry, I've been up that alley myself a few times, but there ought to be room for summat else!

[Erthona]

"Can one speak of masses in relation to poetry?"

I can.


Dale

[billy]

okay, so what is the definitive of 'being published'? for me it could ne a mag or book, but it should be mainstream. something read by Dale's masses

unlike dale, i want people to cream themselves and me and my poetry...but i only want that if it's truthful. something i know will never happen, so i'd be really wary of those that did gush

[Philatone]

in an effort to spur this towards its intended purposes, i was recently accepted into a magazine whose work I've really liked (at least for the few months I've read them). I post it also because I think it would be a fitting place for others on the site to submit to, probably more than me--it appears to cater to a specific kind of poetry that I feel many (though not all) of us write.

http://frontporchrvw.com/issue/july-2012/article/amen

[billy]

nice one Geoff keep us posted on any more you get done.

it looks good btw

[Leanne]

I am churlish and mean, and I apologise.

I do think everyone should at least aim to get their poetry ready for publication, whether it's submitted or not. Having at least one publication under your belt is a little bit of vindication for all the years of hard slog. It doesn't make you a better poet or give you bragging rights as many seem to believe, but it does mean that you've met the wants of your audience, which should really be the goal for any poet.

[billy]

another thing it does, is give people something to aim at. though as others have stated, it doesn't mean you'd be a good poet. it should mean though that you've learnt how to workshop and edit your stuff to the best of your ability, that you've taken it that little bit more seriously.

and yes leanne, you are churlish

[Leanne]

sod off

Yes, that little bit extra is what separates poets from poseurs.

[billy]

i do think if i were good enough i'd want to be published but the thought of screaming hoards calling me rubbish and wanker is what puts me off a little

[Leanne]

I never got called rubbish or wanker (maybe I wasn't doing it right)... it just offended me to have other people make way more money out of my work than I did, and then screw me over at every opportunity.

[Leanne]

I think I may have discovered the root of my pissed-offedness toward publishing... out of interest, I have been going through all my unpublished stuff and discovered that out of many hundreds of poems, I'd be happy to submit fifteen. It's a very sad day when reality hits and you realise that your creativity peaked years ago and still wasn't interesting enough