Starting to Publish

Once a person has decided to write poetry, and has actually written some, the next step — the next desire — is to publish those poems. Back when I began to publish poems (45 years ago!), there was a pretty clear process. The wanna-be-a-published-poet person had to identify places where the poems could be submitted. There was a very helpful journal, Trace, which published a list of markets, along with poems and prose. Most teachers in English departments didn't have a clue: "Oh, send it to the New Yorker," they'd say, or maybe The Atlantic. Those magazines, of course, could pick and choose whom they'd publish. I could ever decide if these professors were just ignorant or being sadistic.

I was fortunate enough to get good advice.

I've edited for both hard copy and webzines. I have seen many submissions from poets who don't know the conventions. And maybe the conventions are changing. I wrote a blog post  about this in 2003.

I'd like to know (a) how poets today get started publishing, with "publishing" have the widest possible meaning, and (b) what you see as the conventions for submitting poems. I'm especially interested in how this works in countries outside the USA and in languages other than English. I will also (c) answer any questions I can.

If you care to respond to (a) or (b) or ask a question (c), please do it as a comment to this post.

Comments

[Brandy]

When I entered my MFA program about 10 years ago now, I was fortunate to have as a required class something called "Research and Publication in Creative Writing". This was a really handy tool that taught young (and not so young) would-be published writers where to submit things for publication, how to write a cover letter/bio, etc. Thankfully, our professors drilled it into our sometimes swelled heads that places like the New Yorker & Esquire were a long shot, but there were plenty of other venues out there waiting for our work.

A decade later, I still haven't ever sent a poem or any other piece of writing to a "big" publishing venue, as I'd rather have something published for a small but appreciative audience than nothing at all. Nevertheless, since living outside the US for the past 4 years, my only qualm is that so few magazines accept submissions electronically. Certainly I can understand the problem with being deluged by e-mails, but online forms would be beneficial...try mailing something from the third world to fit a set deadline and you'll see what I mean (I often think Agha Shahid Ali's "The Country without a Post Office" referred to my attempts to mail something from Afghanistan).

I'd be curious to know how other writers living outside their country of origin manage to publish "back home" or elsewhere...