Reflections of a working writer and reader
I don't give readings, no, although I have recorded three of my collections, just to show how I should read them. Hearing a poem, as opposed to reading it on the page, means you miss so much- the shape, the punctuation, the italics, even knowing how far you are from the end. Reading it on the page means you can go your own pace, taking it in properly; hearing it means you're dragged along at the speaker's own rate, missing things, not taking it in, confusing there and their and things like that. And the speaker may interpose his own personality between you and the poem, for better or worse. For that matter, so may the audience. I don't like hearing things in public, even music. In fact, I think poetry readings grew up on a false analogy with music: the text is the 'score' that doesn't 'come to life' until it's 'performed.' It's false because people can read words, whereas they can't read music. When you write a poem, you put everything into it that's needed: the reader should 'hear' it just as clearly as if you were in the room saying it to him. And of course this fashion for poetry readings has led to a kind of poetry that you can understand first go: easy rhythms, easy emotions, easy syntax. I don't think it stands up on the page. Philip Larkin
. . . about publishing:
Ten Awful Truths About Book Publishing by Steve Piersanti 6-09 Update
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Oh, bleak at the outset of the New Year! Must I resort to Lulu..?
jb says: After everything you know now, Dick; would she be so bad?
This is good news for small publishers though. If the average US book now sells fewer than 250 copies a year that means a small publisher could do as well. People want to read good writing, and if the big publishers don’t produce it but small publishers do, then buyers will simply shift their affections. It hardly matters any more than most books aren’t in bookshops, since most people buy over the internet anyway and browsing in real shops is generally more interesting in secondhand and charity shops than big bookshops where you already know they’ll only be stocking Katie Price and books you may want but are cheaper on the web.
Roll on the day the big publishers collapse like banks and every publisher is a small publisher. Then it will be about quality again, not clout.
jb says: Hi Joel. It’s certainly good to see so many smaller publishers doing well, these days.