10-07-2011, 07:18 AM
A few questions come out of this. One, does the editor/publisher truly act as a worthwhile filter? There are so many poets -- and I am rarely able to wade through those in The Poetry Review which comes periodically -- I really wish that it would be like a page turner, but it is not. Likewise with most 'slim volumes'. There ought to be a marked shift between even the best poetry I see online, and the precious printed word -- but there is not, publisher or no. Little cliques abound, and pat each other on the back, and A publishes or praises B, and B returns the favour.
It is true that the press has become v Philistine-- the regular slots for poems no longer seem to exist. Did the poets become too abstruse? I don't know. Leanne left out one major category: when poets fall out among themselves. That is usually worth a few column-inches.
I can imagine a book of special paper, handmade, binding, pictures and so on. But it would still need that essential ingredient, quality, and if any were to be shifted, marketing. In the UK, the 'Poems on the Underground' have carved out out quite a niche -- it is hard, but do-able.