POETRY & THE INTERNET

So what's all this about Poetry and the internet?

I was asked this question by a writer whose work I had offered to publish in an ezine on the world-wide web. I assured him that his work would be well-read and would be published much sooner than if he waited for someone to publish it in a magazine. Though skeptical he agreed. A few months later and his work had been chosen as a set-text for an A-level exam two years hence.

As writers you've probably all agonised over your writing and been thrilled to have completed a piece you were happy with and couldn't wait for it to be published. You send it out to a magazine. If you are lucky you might get a reply within a couple of weeks and maybe three months down the line the poem is published. Often it will take a lot longer; one or two year waits are not uncommon.

And then when the mag appears — Oh no! there's a typo that makes your last crucial line all wrong. At best the editor will reprint the corrected poem in the next issue, three or six months later! But if you submit your work to an online ezine it can be accepted and published in less than 24 hours and if there is a typo let loose it can be corrected just as quickly.

OK you may say but isn't there a lot of rubbish published on the web?

Well yes there is but there is also a lot of rubbish published in print and this is without going into the murky waters of defining what is rubbish and what is not. Just as there are glossy magazines and photocopied paste-up poetry zines in the print world, so there are well-edited ezines but also websites that will publish your shopping-list. You need to find ways of getting to the cream rather than the dross. For today I have done a printout giving the addresses of a number of useful sites.

[The printout was a severely cut-down version of the Links page at New Hope International]

I want to make it clear before proceeding further that it isn't a case of one or the other. Printed magazines score in a number of ways.

• First they are more portable, you can stick em in your pocket read em on the bus or in the bath. There is also the feel of the paper in your hand.
• Also the whole thing is there; you don't have to download each page (though of course a screen page can be several times the length of a book page).
• On the internet you might just select a few items from a magazine; maybe the names of writers you know or titles that intrigue or just a few at random but you probably won't read or download the whole of the magazine.
• With a printed magazine there is no extra effort involved to read the piece by a poet you've never heard of.

The internet isn't just about webpages though it is about communication. Lots of poets who send their work to me through the post will say they want comments or critical feedback. Well editors can't do that. Their job, despite views to the contrary, is to select, not to critique. The average editor doesn’t have the time to give feedback on all the poems submitted.

If you have access to a local writers group then that is, provided it is led well, probably the best place to get your work critiqued in a workshop situation with fellow writers. Such groups exist in the internet in places called mailing lists. Typically a mailing list is run by a "listowner" who acts as a focus for the group. The listowner may take either a passive or dominant role in the proceedings. Members of the mailing list send emails to the "list-address" and the emails are relayed to all the other members who can reply either individually or through the list.

Lists may have a dozen members or hundreds, even thousands. Most lists have some kind of agenda; some might just be concerned with poetry; some with writing in general; some might focus on haiku, or innovative poetry or competition announcements. Some will be places where in-depth discussion takes place. Others will be places where poems are posted but critiques not allowed; others will positively encourage members to critique each other's work. It can take a while to search around and find a mailing list where you feel comfortable but these are places where friendships are made and it is very easy to come and go as you want.

Mailing lists, because they are conducted through the medium of email don't involve spending long periods of time online hiking up your phone-bill! You can get all your email down once a day (or how often you like - depending on the volume) disconnect the phone, read and answer the mail off-line and then the next day you connect, send off your replies and collect a new batch of mail. In some parts of the world (notably the USA), where phone-calls are unmetered and folk can afford to stay connected all day people tend to treat email more like phone-calls and answer each one instantly, and they sometimes get paranoid when they get no answer back after an hour! But the different usage throughout the world is something you get used to after a while.

As well as being an alternative place to publish poetry and a world forum for discussion the internet is also a vast resource for writers. There are thousands of sites where you can find out about publishers, other writers, events, competitions. Others give access to dictionaries; you can get anagrams solved online and do research on practically anything.

There are some things you can do with poetry on the internet that you cannot do in print. Hypertext allows a poem to develop into three dimensions. And you can also integrate sound and visual effects. However the main thing I want to get across is that poetry on the Internet is not about doing away with poetry in print. Books are the biggest-selling item on the Internet! Online bookstores such as Amazon positively buzz with activity. For the small press world and individual poets then creating your own website is a must. You can use your website to promote and advertise your books and create links to work published elsewhere on the Internet. You won’t sell any books simply because they are advertised on the Internet, but you do open up the possibilities.

For all writers, the Internet is an additional source and resource offering new opportunities for reaching a wider audience and sharing ideas with fellow-writers. Don't be afraid of it.