Odds and Ends Essays, Blogs, Internet Discussions, Interviews and Miscellany

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ps might also take a lot of weight off the foundations-very tempting-Ricky RayAlso, on the matter of sharing ebooks, there’s the library angle to consider. Many of my ebooks, from publishers bigand small, come from Overdrive or ProQuest libraries. This includes Carcanet, Faber, Enitharmon, Copper Canyon,BOA Editions, FSG, Norton, Coach House, Wesleyan, Auckland and other university presses, etc. From some briefresearch I did on the subject, both providers make it fairly easy to distribute through them, and then the books canget picked up by libraries in the UK, US, CA, AU, NZ, etc., often simply by a patron or two within the library making arequest for its acquisition.Drew Milne[Addressing Tony Frazer’s first comment] Not boring. One of the most interesting and illuminating posts on thisforum that I’ve read.The poetry world owes you a big thank you for all the work you do, Tony, and it is clear that you do it for the artrather than for the money. A big cheer from me for you generosity.Tim AllenSeconded.Pierre JorisTriplicated…Michael PeverettResponding to Ricky (though with thanks to all for such an interesting thread):I’m starting to go the same way as you. Though I prefer reading physical books, I find I now do a lot of reading inplaces where a smartphone is simply more convenient; for instance, in the workplace, in a queue, in the dark. I’mstarting to buy new poetry titles on Kindle now.Also, I don’t have the storage space for a large standing collection of physical poetry books. So my books get movedon to the local Oxfam bookshop very quickly, even if I loved reading them. By the time I buy another book by thesame poet, I’ll most likely have got rid of its predecessor, thus I can’t refer back to it. A library on Kindle will workmuch better from that point of view.Alec NewmanAmazon seem to have stopped offering small press poetry books for sale unless the publisher pays a fee (I think theywant £25 a month off me). I’ve also noticed that a few titles represented by Central Books aren’t available. Hasanybody else noticed this?Tony FrazerI haven’t been asked by Amazon to do this, and a cursory check just now showed a number of Shearsman titles instock. So, Shearsman appears to be unaffected by any such change.They did approach me about 5 years ago to move over to Create Space, which I would not have wanted to do as Iwould have to have still maintained my main printer-Create Space won’t supply sellers than Amazon, and won’tpermit drop-shipping to third parties. I got away from their approach because the product wasn’t good enough. Atthe time they couldn’t offer a printed spine on any book under 120 pages, and I pointed out that 80% of my bookswere under this threshold and that this was unacceptable. They agreed, apologised and never came back.112
Thanks to Drew and Tim for their kind responses.With respect to Salt, I would second Drew’s comments. Chris and Jen did a lot of good there, but in the end couldn’tsquare the circle, so to speak. They needed to pay the mortgage, and put bread on the table, and I don’t think oneshould begrudge them that. They made some mistakes towards the end, certainly, and it’s clear that some authorswere poorly handled-lack of communication, if nothing else. Looking back, I can see what they were trying to do:essentially, to build a kind of Bloodaxe operation, but with less funding (but lower overheads). I’m not sure thatthere was room for another Bloodaxe, alas. I did once tell a Senior Figure in UK poetry publishing that I knew exactlywhat I would have to do to compete with his press, and that I thought, given time, I could probably do it. However, inorder to quadruple, or even quintuple, turnover, I would need to take on work I didn’t like and play a populist gamewith which I’m uncomfortable. To do all that I would need staff; paying for the staff would blow the increasedincome. Net result in financial terms: similar to now. Net result in terms of fame etc.: probably increased, but whocares?Jeffrey Side[Addressing Ricky Ray’s comment] You make some good points. Like you, I was reluctant to have anything I wrotepublished as an ebook for much the same reasons you have. But after Geoffrey Gatza published my long poem Carrierof the Seed as an ebook, and I found out what the downloads were after a few months (over 8,000, I think), I revisedmy opinion about ebook publication. For me, gaining lots of readers is preferable to holding a beautifully printedbook in my hands, that doesn’t sell well, and therefore remains largely unread-unless you’re Heaney or Ashberyetc.Yes, it is a shame that, as you say, reviewers and prize committees pay no attention to ebooks. But that will probablychange as ebooks become more of the norm. Besides, what does it matter if your book or ebook wins a prize or not?Prizes only help to increase book sales, and ebooks don’t need that, as they get lots of readers anyway.Philip RowlandJeffrey, I take your point about potentially reaching more readers, but doubt that downloading an ebook is oftenequivalent to holding a printed book in one’s hands, with the close attention that invites. I’m fairly sure, for instance,that the print issues of the poetry journal that I published at first in editions of 200 copies was read more carefully bythose who did read it than by the thousands who’ve dropped in on the later online issues for-if the statistics are tobe believed-around 5 minutes on average.Jeffrey SidePhilip, like some readers of some books, there will be some readers of some ebooks who don’t read them as carefullyas others would. Surely it all depends on the individual reader and the particular ebook’s content. If not, then as aliterary culture we have a serious problem.I think, eventually, any reluctant ebook readers will become acclimatised to the technology- if the history of theeventual adoption of technology by the public is taken into consideration.Philip RowlandHi Jeffrey-(brief, belated response): You’re probably right that ‘any reluctant ebook readers will eventually becomeacclimatised to the technology’. But don’t you sometimes feel there’s a difference in the quality of the experience ofreading on-screen and in (book-bound) print, the latter more conducive to “deep” reading, perhaps? Or perhaps myeyes/brain are not fully acclimatised… (as the grammatical slip in my last message could also indicate)!Jeffrey SidePhilip, I don’t necessarily see such a difference-at least not in terms of “quality”. There is, of course, a differentphysical experience between reading a book and reading on-screen. The most obvious being that you can feel thetexture of a book in your hands while reading it. For some, this, in itself, is the sole reason why they buy books. As tothe psychological experiences that the contents of a book induce in one while reading it and those induced while113
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Cover image by Jake BerryCopyright
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Odds and Ends: Essays, Blogs, Inter
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EssaysThe following essays contain
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Many people still think that high-f
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His mind was distinguished by the c
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Pound’s strategy was to offer a d
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Smith’s general contention is tha
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He also acknowledges the retrograde
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72. Motion, p.3.73. Motion, p.3.74.
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reports on what they thought of the
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being switched off. But this is not
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poetry in the same way a novice art
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line is: ‘With all her young ones
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time to insist that they are fine A
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2. Seamus Heaney, ‘The Redress of
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medium for Newton’s laws of motio
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as a critical methodology. This the
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Indeed, Geoffrey Hartman, in relati
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In an effort to be able better to j
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His criticism of Eliot extends to w
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himself, […] proposes something d
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process in service to humanistic an
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will transfigure the conditions and
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11. The Poetical Works of William W
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Dialogue and estrangement (Macmilla
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sent him-there would be no need for
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Peter Porter in his review for Poet
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Marjorie Perloff:‘It’s very str
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biographies of Ginsberg and Kerouac
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Page 65 and 66: The only way I could consider doing
Page 67 and 68: Side sent Bobbi quack remedies for
Page 69 and 70: Ann goes on to quote Bobbi as sayin
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Page 77 and 78: Internet DiscussionsThe following a
Page 79 and 80: debatable) but for all practical pu
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Page 83 and 84: That seems to me to be a perfectly
Page 85 and 86: Jeffrey, I’m suddenly reminded of
Page 87 and 88: Something which is being overlooked
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Page 93 and 94: Archameau would be also. I think hi
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Page 97 and 98: you if you wish.As I have said in t
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Page 101 and 102: Hi, Tim,I think when you suggest th
Page 103 and 104: I was saying that support for the i
Page 105 and 106: Tim Allen[Addressing Robin Hamilton
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Page 109 and 110: Historicist-like’ or “corny”,
Page 111: PDF format and make them available
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Page 117 and 118: a poet and writer, he decided to be
Page 119 and 120: The NEA (US equivalent of AC) has a
Page 121 and 122: ideal way to view poetry though, at
Page 123 and 124: Tim AllenThe term “academic poetr
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Page 129 and 130: InterviewsInterview with Ami Kaye o
Page 131 and 132: Ami Kaye: How many submissions do y
Page 133 and 134: Jeffrey Side: I only edit online ma
Page 135 and 136: MiscellanyResponses to Critics-Part
Page 137 and 138: Jamie McKendrick’s Second Respons
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Page 149 and 150: Rob Stanton’s Response in Jacket
Page 151 and 152: Here I differ from Side, who sees H
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Birkbeck University, and the Poetry
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aware of the problematic status of
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to Men in the early part of their a
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accepted. Later she sent me some po
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