Self publishing?

[Aish]

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.

This is a very good point. The editor/publisher has sadly become more entrepreneur than patron of the arts these days -- once all publishing houses would use the profits from their big sellers like cookbooks and pulp novels to subsidise the "literature", but now of course those profits subsidise their swimming pools and botox. For the most part, the poetry that gets published belongs to the people pleasers, thus published poetry has become pulp as well. And yes, there is an enormous element of backpatting and quid pro quo, it's all rather incestuous.

I suspect -- or rather, I'm quite certain -- that all my objections to self publishing would fall away if, before deciding that a manuscript is ready for publication, the author would just show it to a few impartial and reasonably well qualified individuals for scrutiny rather than acting on the say-so of mother-who-loves-everything-you-do.

If I decide to self publish I have zero qualms about letting you, Billy, Todd, Addy,AA, Jack, Abu, and probably Philatone have a major run at it - if any of you would be game.

Hell - why not start up our own little art press?