On Elizabeth Alexander's reading of her poem

Reb Livingston has once again thrown water on the fire of pettiness that burns through contemporary American poetry, this time in connection with criticisms of Elizabeth Alexander's poem for the inauguration and her reading of it. I recommend her post highly.

Here was my comment:

Thanks, Reb, for pointing out the absurdity of the criticisms of EA and her poem. I enjoyed the poem, myself, both as she read it and when I saw it with its correct lineation on Mark Doty's blog.

As you correctly point out, contemporary poets don't stand a chance when reading their work before or after politicians or preachers. But I also noticed that both Obama and Lowery are not shy of being *orators*, while EA (like just about any contemporary poet who might have accepted the gig) completely avoids anything "oratorical" in her presentation.

It made me wonder how the poem might have sounded if read by someone experienced in public oratory. I think it would have held its ground much better then.

That's not EA's fault, of course; the miniscule audience for contemporary poetry is quite shy of oratory.

Harlot

Let's hear it for American poets in Switzerland who publish books—in this case, Jill Alexander Essbaum, with her new Harlot. (And, of course, a tip of the hat to Reb Livingston, too, for all her efforts to publish poetry and support poets.)

Submissions

Reb wrote a long, articulate piece about submissions of poetry to magazines and prizes. Here's my comment:

I submitted a manuscript to contests regularly for five or six years. Got close a few times, but spent a lot of money and got no book out of it. (And postage for me is higher, from Switzerland.)

In 2006, I decided to stop submitting my manuscript for a year. I still haven't started again. Individual poems to journals, yes. Manuscript, no.

Because it was frustrating? No. Because it was expensive? No. Because it was boring. I simply got bored with the whole process. No feedback, no nothing. With individual poems, one does actually get some feedback -- acceptance, of course, but also (more often than guidelines imply) rejections with comments about which poems the editors were leaning towards.

With the manuscript-submission "system" that has evolved in the U.S. these days, it is almost impossible to get any feedback on a poetry manuscript. And after a while, that's just boring.