The poetry mafia - does it exist? A question from an xocolatled exasperatee

this isn't limited to poetry, my friend.

Carol Anne Duffy
Simon Armitage

it's really nausea-inducing

In the UK, at least, it seems that every time poetry is ever talked about on TV or in the papers, they wheel out the usual suspects - either Ian McMillan or Roger McGough, or possibly John Hegley. Daisy Goodwin's tits.

Fixed.

You should feel lucky that you have anyone talking about poetry on TV at all.

Publishing a book is a money-losing venture.

The poetry world is still reasonably small, and if you find someone who you share aesthetic interests with, you're likely to become mates with them (unless they are dicks?).

Therefore it only makes sense that people just publish their mates.

Or at least that's how it works in the US poetry world. If you want to get published, you need to network and meet people -- i.e., get a bunch of mates. These days this is generally done by running a reading series, editing a journal, or having a poetry blog, all of which allow you to interact with people in the community (i.e., find your mates).

It can seem pretty inward amongst contemporary poetry in the U.S. imo. You'll find like 5 poets who pretty much have all worked in the same program, put quotes on each others work, review each others books, etc. It's understandable though given their limited audience and resources. Also hurting speaks troof.

Plus a poetry mafia/cabal would be very cool. Intimidation sonnets. Keats deals in back alleys. Beret wearing black turtleneck thugs.

Casuistry otm. The poetry world is painfully small.

I don't know how said world can be that small with events like this being organised - it looks huge, but with all the names you would expect.
http://www.latitudefestival.com/stages/poetry.aspx

I take the point about making friends. Whilst I don't consider myself a dick, I do have a bit of a problem with shyness and this, plus the fact that these days I prefer to be at home with my family, means I am unlikely to get to know the people I need to know in order to my poems published. It's a shit business!

It's not a business at all, of course, it's closer to a community. And staying home with the family is great, but it means you're avoiding the community. And none of that has much to do with what's going on with your poetry, but it does have everything to do with how your poetry relates to the community. And publishing isn't a record of some sort of quality of poetry, it's a map of the community.

I realize I sound like an idiot using the word "community" so much, but that's more or less the ideal it's reaching towards.

Or in other words I am mostly in favor of the model that bwn describes, of 5 poets who have worked together forever and read each other's work intimately and are talking and writing about each other and figuring out how to think and talk about the work and maybe at some point figuring out a way to guide outsiders into accessing the work.

Your link there is for "performance poetry" which is an entirely different genre than what I'm talking about and might have entirely different rules, though.

If publishing is a map of community, which actually sounds cogent to me, then I suppose my last two self-published collections must now be part of some kind of map of monsters.

This is also why poetry introductions are so effing hung up on publishing histories, because you are meant to hear "out from Tender Gluten Press" and think "oh yes, that means this person knows other Tender Gluten people, I see how you fit into the community."

Except my god who cares. Who cares.

I have a real thing about standard poetry intros though. Once I'm at the reading, I don't need an intro. Just give me the stuff.

To make a huge overreaching generalization: I'd wager most poets would benefit from being more into the "community".

But would the poetry benefit?

One of my hobby-horses, and I may well bring it up at this juncture, is how so many editors these days dismiss anyone who uses rhyming couplets, which is what I do obsessively and lustfully.

But it's not just the elite -- this also seems to be the prevailing view among people who don't profess to have any interest at all in poetry. In my experience such people will often belittle their past attempts to write poetry, usually at school, by saying: "I have tried to write poems, but they rhymed."

may *as* well

There's definitely some pubs out there that are into contemporary poetry done up with structure/rhyme. Find poets you like who have a similar style to yours and see where they get published.

Pope might be glad to see essentially no one making a living from poetry.

Better yet, find poets you like who have a similar style to yours and PUBLISH THEM.

Anytime a poet is on TV in America, 90% of the time it's Maya Angelou.

National Fucking Poetry Day