Showing posts with label Writers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Writers. Show all posts

A Passage from Willa Cather

This is from Death Comes For The Archbishop (c. 1927, Willa Cather; c.1955, The Executors of the Estate of Willa Cather)Vintage Books, New York, p. 50.

Father Vaillant began pacing restlessly up and down as he spoke, and the Bishop watched him, musing. It was just this in his friend that was dear to him. "Where there is great love there are always miracles." he said at length. "One might almost say that an apparition is human vision corrected by divine love. I do not see you as you really are, Joseph; I see you through my affection for you. The Miracles of the Church seem to me to rest not so much upon faces or voices or healing power coming suddenly near to us from afar off, but upon our perceptions being made finer, so that for a moment our eyes can see and our ears can hear what is there about us always."

Eliot Asinof Died Yesterday

At the risk of screwing up the link, I attempt to post the link to the obituary in today's New York Times by Daniel Weber.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/11/sports/baseball/11asinof.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Response From Former Editor of The Spoon River Poetry Review

A response from former Editor Lucia Getsi:

Hi there,

I am no longer the editor, having retired from that position after twenty years, but I am happy to answer. The fall issue, in a twice per year journal that has never been late in 25 years, has been published in December for the past 17 years. It is sent NFP mail, so it is usually mid December or even January before it gets to those on the mailing list, approximately 1200. I have seen the galleys--the winners are right in there, just like always. Does this contestant know that fall extends through the winter solstice on Dec. 21?

We have never, nor will we ever, announce the judges before the contest is judged and announced. You cannot imagine how judges are hounded if some people know who they are in advance, and most writers will not even consider judging a contest if their names are announced in advance. We try for blind judging, and keeping identities secret helps.

We've never had a complaint about our rules, after which many other journal contests have modeled their own. They are clear enough so that had I gotten such an email, I may have ignored it, but I doubt that our Publication Director did, as she answers everything. Many times, emails from those not in the computer address book are routinely routed to Junk Mail, and sometimes some slip into Junk even when they are.

Sincerely,

Dr. Lucia Getsi
20 year Editor,
The Spoon River Poetry Review
University Distinguished Professor Emerita,
English and Comparative Literature
Illinois State University

_________________________

Thank you for your quick response.

I still have some questions:
  1. If the judge is kept anonymous, how does he or she know that she/he isn't awarding a prize to his/her current student, a friend, lover/spouse, or family member? (See Jorie Graham Rule)
  2. Do you have a mechanism in place for avoiding this potential problem?
  3. If a finalist turns out to have a personal or professional relationship with the final judge, do you disqualify him or her? If so, is that entrant's fee returned? (In other words, it would seem unfair to penalize an entrant who doesn't know the identity of the final judge before submitting).
  4. I still don't see a link on your website about the 2006 winners, and our correspondent said he/she had entered the 2007 contest. Please clarify.

Best,

Jennifer Semple Siegel

GUEST WRITER: Silencing Writers in the Corporate Nation (Anca Vlasopolos)

(The following article has also been reposted in Poets.net--with permission from its author.

In this article, the author discusses the systemic silencing of writers by corporate America.

As writers, both published and unpublished, think about the ways you and your works have been silenced by corporate America and academic presses.

Feel free to post your comments.)
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I come by my interest in silence and silencing honestly—I grew up in Communist Romania, where the price for speaking out, as my father found out, was imprisonment without the right of habeas corpus. In fact, I know specifically where the U. S. sent the "extreme rendition" prisoners when it sent them to Romania. But that’s not the silencing I will be discussing. For a long time during my academic career I pondered the meaning of silence and silencing in women’s writing, not just in the case working-class writers or writers of color, where the problem was exacerbated by class and race, but in women’s writing precisely because that silencing cut across color and class lines, and the most aristocratic women were in many instances as definitively silenced as the milkmaids walking up the path of the estate. But since stellar scholars and writers, whom we in our general cultural amnesia now neglect, such as Joanna Russ (How to Suppress Women’s Writing) and Tillie Olsen (Silences), have brilliantly examined the subject, I will not be discussing that either.

The subject of my essay is the corporation-owned publishing media and the non-free-market economy that govern the present silencing of writers. I also want to address how academia, itself increasingly a corporate mimic, furthers the aims of the manacled and gagged market place. This paper is not a social-science analysis. I do not profess to practice social science without having been trained in its disciplines. But I am a writer and continue to be a voracious and eclectic reader, so I hope to entertain while edifying you, in the ancient manner, with lots of anecdotes and observations.

The most effective way of silencing a writer is not giving him or her an outlet. I’m not talking about the necessary winnowing that goes on constantly in a culture in which many more people write and submit their writing for publication than read and have any appreciation for literature. I’m talking about people who are experienced, published writers, for whom each new book presents the same dilemmas, problems, and humiliations as the first, each time without the hope that one still clings to in one’s writerly youth. We know that publishers commit colossal mistakes; this is not a recent phenomenon. We need only mention James Joyce, whose Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man was rejected multiple times before it rose to become a classic. Proust’s first volume of A la recherche du temps perdu was rejected so many times that he ended up publishing it himself. And I could go on to myriad examples.

What I’m addressing here is the systematic, systemic silencing that goes on in what has become the ultra-capitalist business of publishing. About ten years ago, The Nation magazine did a feature on the remaining handful of independent presses in the country, small presses that were not subsidiaries of the petroleum industry or the Disney or Warner entertainment empires. Of those presses, fewer remain today. Picador has been swallowed. Dalkey Press has bit the dust. Coffee House, Milkweed, and Graywolf still limp on, they too trying so hard to find the best seller that they rarely publish the distinguished books that used to make their fame—if not their fortune, and there’s the rub. In the days of independent presses, when the Penguin "group," for instance, didn’t stand for a huge multi-national conglomerate, presses expected to make 8% profits on successful publications. Today, anything less than 25% is considered a marketing failure, and the writer whose book doesn’t see those profits can kiss his/her next advance goodbye and can go back to the starting line in terms of getting a publisher for the next manuscript.

The dominant presses, themselves subsidiaries of larger global corporations, control the market in various other ways that make it difficult for all but the most persistent and informed readers to be exposed to any books but those the publicity departments of these presses want them to see. The presses control the display at your local Borders, Barnes and Noble, and even independent bookstores. They pay for shelf space, so that their books will occupy prime space near the entrance to the bookstore, in the most eye-catching location, and that their books be placed with the cover rather than the spine in the shelves facing the browser. These presses control signings and readings. The pressure has become so great that even independent bookstores are reluctant to set up signings and readings for any but the major presses, even for such presses as Archipelago, with its high-quality and well-regarded international list. So, basically, unless you walk into your local bookstore determined to order the book you want even if it’s not on the shelf, you’re going to buy something on display that catches your eye. Even when you order a book, as I’ve done many times, the bookstore personnel forget to notify you that the book has arrived. They send it back to the publisher, who then charges the author for returned books against royalties, so that through creative accounting, such as that practiced by one of my presses—Columbia University Press, a writer is always in deficit; this despite my memoir having been kept in print for the last seven years (thus clearly making money for CUP).

In addition to the raw rapacity of the multi-corporate presses that dominate the market, the process of publishing with the multis as well as with the independents who fashion themselves in the image of the multis, such the venerable Knopf and Farrar Strauss (the latter no longer an independent), silences writers. No major, and a good deal of minor, presses will look at unagented manuscripts. This barrier between writers and presses sets up yet another profit-making enterprise that depends on the generation of capital, not on literary excellence and lasting power. Agents become agents to make money. They will represent writers who write what’s been written, published, and proved successful. They do not seek fresh, original voices and authors who may create a "market" for their work over time. Agents look for works that fit present, proven, money-making niches. So, apart from the rapaciousness of the corporate publishers, writers have to deal with the cupidity of agents, some of whom moreover have the arrogance to regard themselves as literary critics and to force writers to make major changes in order to make a sale. I had an agent tell me that the political content of my detective novel was too disturbing and that I should make it into a screenplay, which he offered to represent, because he felt the political content would be muted in such a treatment. A famous agent told me that my most recently published book, The New Bedford Samurai (from the small, independent press Twilight Times Books), which she received in manuscript, was a "deliberately noncommercial" production and that I should bide my time and wait for her to read it when she had time because, she said, she was in the business to make money. On one occasion, when my colleague Christopher Leland and I participated as invited speakers at a writers’ conference at Oakland University, we sat at the same table for lunch as other invited speakers, among them two agents from New York. While it’s indisputable that at my age young people look very young, these two were, by their own admission, in their early and mid-twenties. Chris and I asked them what they were looking for when they shopped for manuscripts, and they said: "Edgy young fiction." The publishing industry, like others, depends on the wisdom of people who have hardly lived long enough to have read the literary masterpieces and the discovered treasures that make up expanding canons. They are the gatekeepers.

In the same crass and often ignorant way in which agents manipulate writers toward commercial success, editors at presses regard themselves as great stylists in the mode of Ezra Pound and Toni Morrison, to name but two illustrious editors. With a handful of exceptions, they are not. They’re people whose jobs and renewals in those jobs depend on their finding, the same as the agents, works that fit an already fabricated and commercially developed niche into which they snugly fit, without disturbing readers or upsetting reviewers or making trouble for the bookstores. The phenomenon of Harry Potter, a series that is at least well written and imaginative, nevertheless is exemplary of a book piggybacking on many equally inventive and well-written fantasy novels that made the niche for Harry and were not even mentioned as predecessors by reviewers largely ignorant of a genre they generally treat with contempt.

Which brings me to the reviewers: It is as rare to have a major newspaper review a book by an independent press as it is to spot a wild orchid in Michigan. Local papers will review books by writers who live in the area, thereby bringing the book to the attention of at best 5,000 readers, and major metropolitan newspapers like The Detroit Free Press and Detroit News no longer even have local reviewers—they pay for syndicated reviews from national sources, like the Associated Press. A half a page advertisement in The New York Times Book Review section costs over $22,000 for a single time, so no independent press can afford to advertise the books it publishes in venues where the reviews make or unmake a book. A review in The NY Times Book Review does in fact make or break a book in terms of the agent’s interest and the next publishing contract. The definitive biography of the poet Rilke, for instance, published by Farrar Strauss, had a lukewarm review in the Times Book Review, and although it received a glowing review in The Nation, neither publisher nor agent accepted the writer’s next project, original fiction. This despite translation rights FS sold to Germany, France, and China. In Germany, the book became a best seller, and the writer was invited (travel and honorarium) to present in Europe, repeatedly, for this book as well as for his critical work and translations of Hesse; clearly, the European market is still more inclined toward writing of substance than the American, but our multi-corporate practices are beginning to take hold overseas as well. Shopping for a new agent and publisher in one’s late seventies had effectively silenced this writer for several years.

As for me, I engaged in an email exchange that got increasingly more acrimonious with the book editor of the Seattle Times. I had a limited number of review copies that my publisher expected me to send out—she dutifully sent out her copies to the biggies—and I sent queries as to whether papers such as the Seattle Times or The Providence Journal would be interested in seeing the book because of its Pacific- and Atlantic-rim subject matter. The Seattle Times editor objected to my calling my book a nonfiction novel. I told him that the genre had been so dubbed by Truman Capote for In Cold Blood, and that, if anything, my book as even more of a hybrid than Capote’s. He then riposted that he knew about Capote, which I doubt, but that it was the kiss of death to call a book a nonfiction novel because it would confuse readers as to whether it was fiction or not. I explained to him that parts of my book were fiction and others were research and meditative essays based on science, cultural anthropology, and the most recent ecological data about the Pacific Rim. He, however, got to have the last word. My book has not been reviewed by the Seattle Times. It has a snowball’s chance of being reviewed by any of the well-known newspapers in the U. S., even though it got a great review in the Cape Cod Chronicle and in the Grosse Pointe News.

So, writers battle demographics ("edgy young fiction"), genre (call it something we can easily place on a labeled shelf), agents, who nowadays regard themselves as literary critics, editors at presses who do the same with generally few qualifications other than an M.A. in English, to the corporate structure whose whole interest in literature is to make its 25% or more, to the bookstores that are being owned by the corporate structures in the way that they display, advertise, and order books. In addition to all these modes of silencing, writers must confront academia.

I’ll begin this section of this "j’accuse" by quoting Flannery O’Connor, who, when asked if academia silenced creative writers, responded, "not enough of them." It may seem paradoxical that a writer delineating modes of silencing would side with the need to silence others. However, the problem with creative writing in the academy is two-fold: creative writers who have jobs in universities and colleges become the "wives" of the publishing world, that is, they put out without having to be paid. Forgive the vulgar analogy, but I’m following Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s examination of wives versus prostitutes in her Women and Economics, where she states that wives cheapen and undermine the labor of the sex workers, who at least have the freedom to choose and to be paid piecemeal, so to speak, as opposed to the wives who have been sold or have sold themselves to a single master. So, to some extent, the writers in academia, only in the sense that they have a master—the university, which exacts publications for tenure, promotion, contract renewal, and salary raises. The writers, in turn, can offer their wares for free to the market and generally do. If anyone here takes offence, do please remember that I number myself in this category. The condemnation includes me. I have published over two hundred poems and short stories, two chapbooks of poetry, a collection of poems, a detective novel, a memoir, and a nonfiction novel. The only advance I ever received was so small that I was barely able to cover the upgrade to a newer computer.

If I added up my income from my writing, I’d have made perhaps $5,000 over a lifetime of writing. I’m not counting, of course, the salary increases and the promotion, which are vastly greater than the direct earnings. But what does this practice do? It offers yet another subsidy to the corporate publishing world. Excellent work for free—can anyone get a better deal?

To go back to O’Connor’s quotation: while writers in the academy cheapen the labor of writers who should be able to support themselves through their writing, academics also depend on attracting and retaining students and on getting good evaluations from them. Consequently, professors of creative writing encourage students to submit for publication even when these students have not lived enough to have much to say, have not had time to think enough to have anything worth saying, and have not read enough to have developed skills that outshine or at least rival their predecessors. Thus the market is flooded with free work by a huge amount of scribblers whose white noise drowns out the few genuine talents and the occasional genius. Add to that the fly-by-night or fly-by-screen journals run by equally unformed and uninformed "editors," and the possibility of true talent to be heard becomes more and more remote.

Unlike the corporate publishing world, however, which pays no mind to where a person has published, only to how much, academia worships addresses. Not content, not style, not the felicitous merging of the two, but merely addresses, and this form of worship applies to scholarly as well as to creative endeavors, but I am convinced that the system of peer review that to some extent justifies, though only in part, address worship for scholarship has no counterpart in the world of creative writing. It’s not other fine writers who judge a dossier of a novelist or a poet to say how s/he is doing—it’s the address, and the prize. We know from scandals such as the one that led to the foetry.com website that contests in creative writing harbor outrageous examples of corruption and nepotism. Grant giving at the NIH, while subject to fads in science, has never approached the utter cynicism of the giving of prizes in creative writing.

The corporate market silences creative writers by looking, always, not at plot, characterization, formal structure, etc., but at the bottom line, which rhymes only with excessive profit. It surrounds itself with safeguards for the production of successful sameness, with agents at one end and influence buying at the distribution end. Independent presses mirror the corporate publishers because the weak desire to emulate the strong. Academia provides shelter for writers who in turn through their own labor and their unwise encouragement of fetal writing from students flood the market with free labor, thereby exacerbating the economic difficulties of any writer of genuine power to be able to count on his/her literary talent to make a living. The result, ladies, gentlemen, and scholars, is the dross we find on the tables of our local branches of the Exxon Mobil bookstore and the mute inglorious Miltons and Jane Austens who write deliberately noncommercial books that remain forever silenced in some hard disk or flash drive or, even in our day, yellowing somewhere in an attic trunk. The system should be a public scandal, but for that to happen we would have to have non-corporate, independent press and media in this great country of ours.

__________________
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This essay has been posted here with the writer's permission.
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Copyright 2007 by Anca Vlasopolos.
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Guest writer Anca Vlasopolos was born in 1948 in Bucharest, Rumania. Her father, a political prisoner of the Communist regime in Rumania, died when Anca was eight. After a sojourn in Paris and Brussels, at fourteen she immigrated to the United States with her mother, a prominent Rumanian intellectual and a survivor of Auschwitz. Anca is a professor of English and Comparative Literature at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. She is married to Anthony Ambrogio, a writer and editor; they have a biological daughter, Olivia (a graduate of Oberlin College and a PhD candidate at Tufts University), and an adopted daughter, Beatriz, who came to them from Guatemala in 2000, when she was 10.
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Her publications include Missing Members (1991), a police procedural; No Return Address (2000), memoir; Penguins in a Warming World (2007), poetry; The New Bedford Samurai (2007), non-fiction novel.
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Professor Vlasopolos presented this essay at a symposium on Silence and Silencing at her university.
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Always Check Out ANY Writing Contest Before Submitting...

Just a question: has anyone had any experience with the Utmost Christian Contest?

It's a good idea to check out any contest before submitting to it; legitimate contest sponsors will welcome your questions and strive for transparency.

When doing a Google search, use the terms "Contest Name" + "Warning" in your search. One warning does not necessarily mean that it's a bad deal, but several warnings, well, watch out!

Judge for yourself here (Rule 12):

Poems will be judged by an independent committee of poets under the administration of Utmost Christian Writers Foundation director, Barbara Mitchell. Under no circumstances will Utmost Christian Writers or the judges enter into discussion with any contestant.

Best,

Jennifer

Random Quote: Alan Sillitoe

"A writer is liked if he is loyal to the system. But it is the writer's duty in a sense to be disloyal...He can speak up in many ways; the best way is to write a book."

Alan Sillitoe
The Loneliness of the Long-distance Runner
(Quote from The Nation, 1969)

Doris Lessing wins Nobel Prize

One thing I know: she was not on the list of odds-on favorites. I have to admit that I haven't read her books, but I've certainly heard of her.

I'm sorry I've been such an errant blogger.

I get a kick out of their awarding this to a person of her age.

Any thoughts out there?

NOTE: Thanks, Nomi. Hope you don't mind, but here's a partial blurb and link to the story:

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Doris Lessing, author of dozens of works from short stories to science fiction, including the classic "The Golden Notebook," won the Nobel Prize for literature Thursday. She was praised by the judges for her "skepticism, fire and visionary power."

The Swedish academy's announcement was stunning even by the standards of Nobel judges, who have been known for such surprises as Austria's Elfriede Jelinek and Italy's Dario Fo.

more

I didn't see this coming either, but I'm glad to see that this noted writer was awarded this prize.

Best, Jennifer

A Wrinkle In Time

http://www.madeleinelengle.com/

Madeleine L'Engle (1918-2007)

My attempt at the link is playing with me, but you can find it.

New Feature: Plug Your Book Here

I'm pleased to announce that the comment thread attached to this post will remain open to those of you who want to plug your books or the books of a friend. Creative writers don't have a lot of opportunities to blurb about their efforts, so I thought I'd offer. This is a genuine offer, BUT...

There are some caveats:
  • No book reviews. Just the title, author, a short blurb, and link to where one can buy and/or see more information/review about the book.
  • You may use this thread only; blurbs in other comment sections will be deleted.
  • By posting your blurb, you do leave yourself open to comments about your work, and these comments cannot be deleted, at least on this thread--at least I haven't figured out how to do this.

Thank you!

Best, Bugzita

Spam Lit News: An e-mail from Jesse Glass

On a lighter note...

Today, I received an e-mail from Jesse Glass, the poet who coined the term "Spam Lit" back in 2002.

This poet's Wikipedia entry is quite interesting, and I'm glad to have been able to give due credit where credit was due.

Best, Bugzita

Bugzita (Jennifer Semple Siegel) is NO One's Puppet

I received an e-mail from a reader, suggesting that Post Foetry might be be a "puppet" blog. I decided to answer here and clear up any misconceptions.

I'm in charge of Post Foetry; when Foetry closed, I created the Post Foetry blog, and I'm its sole administrator. I created the blog with great trepidation and some fear, but that wasn't going to stop me. I decided early on that my posting style, for better or worse, would reflect a more moderate tone, which is more in keeping with my basic personality.

As you can clearly see in the left panel, Alan, Matt, and Nomi are team members, but, so far, only Nomi has posted entries, and that is perfectly okay. They understand that I would never censor a team member, so if Alan decided to post something in his own style, no big deal.

However, I make the decision as to what I post, sometimes scathing, sometimes humorous and downright silly, sometimes newsy, sometimes sad, and sometimes just plain fun. I wanted to create a place where I would want to visit time and again--besides, aren't blogs really a form of "literary masturbation"?

But I also want foets to understand that they won't get a free pass here.

I don't have the money, time, or staff to do in-depth investigative work, but if I get a tip and can verify it with two or more sources, I'll do my best to act on it in a timely manner. Also, readers can leave comments (or e-mail me) if they want to tell their side.

I have posted a "Watch List" of contests, and I have yet to receive a message from any of the people running these contests. Perhaps they believe that a wall of silence will shut this site down, but they would be totally wrong. I may be a kinder and gentler soul, but I'm also persistent and stubborn.

In other words, I'm no puppet of anyone.

In his personal blog, Alan Cordle did coin the term "Foet Laureate" (as it pertains to Charles Simic), and after looking at the facts, I agreed with Alan's assessment. Alan had absolutely nothing to do with my launching the "Foet Laureate" web page; he didn't even suggest the possibility. I take full credit and responsibility for the Foet Laureate site, not the term itself.

Believe me, it was a difficult decision for me to challenge a major poet and the Library of Congress, but it was the right decision. Still, my writing career, such as it is, has probably been ruined, at least in a traditional venue.

Alan has made the decision to distance himself from Foetry and Post Foetry, and I respect that. I was disappointed and sad that Foetry closed, but circumstances change and people move on--the cycle of life in motion.

Alan is my cyber friend (we have never met), and I will always admire him for what he risked personally and professionally three years ago.

Of course Alan and Foetry have influenced (to a certain extent) my thinking; two years ago (yes, sadly, I missed the best year of Foetry), I was thoroughly pissed off at the publishing industry, in particular The Iowa Review and The Paris Review. I would never submit to these two publications again, not because they rejected my work, but how they rejected it: no answer from Iowa at all and a mangled manuscript from Paris, with ripped pages and not even a form letter.

All I could see was a wall of red, and, somehow, I stumbled on Foetry and stayed with it for two years (a lifetime on cyberspace).

Writers have long memories, and little magazines would do well to remember that.

I have picked on New Yorker poetry on both Foetry and Post Foetry, but someone has trained their staff well in the art of basic courtesy; once (1988), when I was living in Yugoslavia, I submitted a manuscript to them, with a SASE for "reply only." They rejected the piece, but someone took the time to explain to me that (at that time), they returned all manuscripts, and gently chided me for not including full postage. They actually paid international postage to send the piece back to me. I was embarrassed, but also impressed that they would treat a lowly, totally unknown writer with such respect (and on their dime, and it wasn't cheap, either).

So, here's the deal: love us or hate us (or somewhere in between), Post Foetry will hang around for as long as at least one other person reads us; my posts, for better or worse, will be mine alone; if Alan wants to say something, he will have to say it himself, and he knows that.

I see no reason to "out" the questioner, but if he/she would like to respond, feel free, either anonymously or signed.

Bugzita
Jennifer Semple Siegel

John Q Doe and Jane Q Doe



I have a burning question:
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Is there anyone out there who is really named John Q. Doe or Jane Q. Doe? Until the internet age came along, they were just plain John and Jane Doe, but with the advent of rigid online forms, there seemed to be a need to include a middle name in these stalwart examples of American identity.
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I can tell you first hand what a hassle it is not to have a middle name in the cyber world. My better half Jerry lacks a middle name, and it wreaks all kinds of bureaucratic havoc, especially when he fills out NMN in that middle name spot. He often gets mailed addressed to "Mr. Gerald NMN Siegel." On top of that, his nickname is the same as one of the creators of Superman. Try typing in "Jerry Siegel" and see how many Google hits one gets (with quotations, 156,000).
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I once asked my late mother-in-law why she didn't give her firstborn a middle name. She said, "We were too poor."
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Okay, so Anita was known for her bad jokes...
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But I digress.
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The Does seem to be generic people, invented by government statisticians, with generic addresses (123 Main St. in Anytown 12345--54321 if one wants to place them in Middle America--U.S.A); an internet search shows that both John and Jane share the same social security number (123-45-6789), so I would presume that Jane and John is actually the same person with gender issues.
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In my new book (a novel-in-progress), my main character is named Jane Q. Godwin (I couldn't quite bring myself to stick her in generic hell by naming her Jane Q. Doe, but the "Jane Q." is no accident). Her book is barely written, but she has her own web page. I'm not pushing my book here (it doesn't exist but in my head, in some scattered notes, and on one web page), but thinking about how I want to approach creating Jane's life has made me curious about her and her husband Kirk (HA! Not John Doe), and why John and Jane have persisted as American ideals and symbols.
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Sure, sometimes one calls them the Smiths or the Publics, but the surname "Doe" seems to represent everything about ordinary people living ordinary (albeit bureaucratic snafu'd) American lives.
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Just some philosophical musing (before school starts next week, when literature takes over).
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Bugzita

Grace Paley, 1922-2007


Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrations and revolutionists. --Franklin D. Roosevelt
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Grace Paley, poet/story writer and a self-avowed "combative pacifist," passed away Wednesday at her home in Thetford Hill, VT. She was 84.
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The literary world has lost a giant; I remember Ms. Paley when she was writer-in-residence during my time at Goddard College. She was a writer who seemed deeply interested in helping beginning writers. Although her residence at Goddard was only for a few days, she made a point of getting to know the names of all the MFA students.
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Meeting Grace Paley was one of the high points of my professional career.
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Spam Lit Poem: Anatomy of a Merged Poem Based on Proverbs

This Spam Lit poem, cobbled together with slightly familiar proverbs, arrived today in my spam box. The "poem" has a lovely resonance to it and seems to touch upon some of the thoughts and opinions of Post Foetry members. The poem even makes some sense, certainly more sense than some of the published poems I have read lately! I decided to research and then attribute each line to its creator.
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* * * * *

Nothing can be more contemptible than to suppose Public Records to be true.

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Whatever you do, do it with intelligence, and keep the end in view.

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The best interviews -- like the best biographies -- should sing the strangeness and variety of the human race.

(Lynn Barber I'm not sure about this attribution)
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We only part to meet again.

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Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrations and revolutionists.

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The worst thing that happens to you may be the best thing for you if you don't let it get the best of you.
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A husband is what's left of the lover after the nerve has been extracted.
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As you walk through the valley of the unknown, you will find the footprints of Jesus both in front of you and beside you.
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He who fears to suffer, suffers from fear.
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Memory moderates prosperity, decreases adversity, controls youth and delights old age.
(Lactantius Firmianus (?), a.k.a. Lucius Caelius)

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All doors open to courtesy.
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Conductors must give unmistakable and suggestive signals to the orchestra, not choreography to the audience.
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It takes a great man to give sound advice tactfully, but a greater to accept it graciously.

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________________
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Submitted by spammer Jesse Ochoa aleevcnd@soamad.com
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I throw out this challenge to our readers: either write your own Spam Lit poem or prose (sans advertising) OR submit one (again, without advertising) that appeared in your e-mail inbox or spam box. We'll publish the what we think is the best of the best (in other words, it doesn't matter who YOU are). I'd like to see some humor and satire as well.
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Rules
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--Submission is free and open to everyone.
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--However, we probably won't publish every poem or prose we receive, especially if we receive duplicate submissions.
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--Selection of submission may depend on how well one follows rule #2.
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__________________
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1. Submit your Spam Lit here. Place your Spam Lit in the body of the e-mail (No attachments will be opened!)
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2. Attribute the line to its original author or poet (in parentheses just like I did above), and provide a verifying link. Submissions providing verifying links are more likely to see their submission published in this blog.
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3. No porn, gratuitous violence, hate speech, please. Such work will not be posted.
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4. Keep them short, no more than 39 lines (just in case someone wants to attempt a Spam Lit sestina) and about 250 words for prose.
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5. In the subject line, note Poem/Prose Submission; don't put "Spam" in the title; it might get kicked back to you.
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6. For now, the submission period is indefinite, but we reserve the right to close this offer at any time.
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7. NO prizes will be awarded and no payment offered.
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8. As long as you don't attach an ad or other blurb (other than your tag line), your e-mail will remain confidential; otherwise, all bets are off. Also, you may remain anonymous or be credited as the Spam Lit author or finder.
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9. If we don't get too many submissions, we'll acknowledge receipt; otherwise, we won't.
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I hope to see some fine Spam Lit!
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Bugzita

TWO Lexicoins

Before I hit the sack tonight, I stumbled upon two new lexicoins (neologisms/neoglisms?). In fact, I like one so much that I'm thinking of using it as a short story title:

Ms. Malaproper

n. (person) A young modern woman who has the appearance of being all prim and proper but who, in fact, has a dark soul.

Mrs. Malaproper

n. (person) The young woman's mother.

_______________________

Neither term (in quotation markers) shows up on Google.

Without quotations, "Ms. Malaproper" has about 12 Google hits, but none of them pertain to the entire term.

Without quotations, "Mrs. Malaproper" has about 7 Google hits, again none of them pertaining to the entire term.

By itself, "Malaproper" shows up about 230 times on Google, which includes my post from the other day.

According to TV Tropes Wiki,

The distinguishing characteristic of the Malaproper is that they constantly replace words with similar-sounding but wrong ones. A common form of this is for the Malaproper to mangle proverbs, idioms, and other figures of speech. They may turn them into something nonsensical, or use overly complicated synonyms that make them sound wrong; e.g., "The cat's out of the bag" becomes "The feline has been released from the sack!" This character will almost always be corrected, not that this does any good.

The meaning seems to shift when one includes the formal address, at least it seems so to me, hence my assigned meaning.

Of course, two-word lexicoins aren't as good as one-word ones, but certainly superior to three-word lexicoins.

For the next month or so, I'll be doing a word watch on the lexicoins discussed here. Meanwhile, let us know about your lexicoins.

Bugzita

A Post Foetry Forum?

I'm thinking of setting up a simple forum for Post Foetry; I have already looked into a forum template called "Simple Machines," but I haven't set up anything yet. I'm not sure how much more tech information I can stuff into my head, but I'm willing to try.

I would like a Post Foetry forum to be a place where members could vent (pro and con), submit tips on foets, AND discuss new ideas, whatever that means. It probably won't be a copy of Foetry, which reflected Alan and Matt's unique styles, but it won't be censored either (except for spam and libelous stuff that could land me in court).

This blog would stay up--I'm discovering that I enjoy blogging.

Also, I have set up a Flash Fiction Project web site (which hasn't been advertised yet), and I think a Post Foetry forum would be a good place to start a thread where writers could post their own flash fiction pieces. I am also contemplating a Poetry Project thread and a Flash Memoir Project.

I have set up The Flash Fiction Project Blog, but it is at a very elementary stage; I'm thinking that a forum might be a better place for self-posting of creative work, but I could still post pieces that we admire and like on the FFP blog.

Anyway, to gauge possible interest, I have set up a poll.

I hope you all vote!

Best, Bugzita

Spam Lit: Wikipedia Article

I have started a Wikipedia article on "Spam Lit" and have placed a copy in our draft file on this blog, just in case they decide to delete it. I really should have started it offline.

Next time.

I wrote it last night, well, in the a.m., and, obviously, it needs work.

I have tons of sources to add, though, and that should help.

If you feel the urge to edit the article over at Wiki, please feel free.

Bugz

SpamLit.com (in Progress): A Sample

Okay, so I'm working on my Spam Lit web page (which I'll post tomorrow--I never do web page posting when I'm tired. I'm still not very adept at this process, and I once submitted five pages without their images), and I run across this really cool site:

Hilarious! Literal spam haiku has to be one of the most brilliant ideas for the discerning literature wonk.

This site takes a literal view of Spam Lit and applies it to the Hormel version of Spam and real and imaginary literary figures.

Spamlette? Spam Letters?

This is one of the most brilliant sites I have seen (although the backgound is a bit too busy. Yikes!).

For example (with apologies to webmaster John Nagamichi Cho):

SHAM-27.

Psychologists think Sartre
wrote Nausea because
His mom fed him SPAM.

To appreciate the full effect, you just have to visit this site and read all the haiku.

Bugzita

Spam Lit Poem: Ignoring the Critic

There is one way to handle the ignorant and malicious critic.
Ignore him.
The covers of this book are too far apart.
In a major matter no details are small.
Behold, I have refined thee,
but not with silver
I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction. [Isaiah 48:10]
No such thing as a man willing to be honest --
that would be like a blind man willing to see.
Separation penetrates the disappearing person
like a pigment and steeps him in gentle radiance.
It is the duty of a doctor to prolong life
and it is not his duty to prolong the act of dying.
To understand the heart and mind of a person,
look not at what he has already achieved,
but at what he aspires to do.
We are all HIV-positive.
What is thine is mine, and all mine is thine.
Your friend is your field which you sow with love
and reap with thanksgiving.
Love is what you've been through with somebody.
A symphony is a stage play
with the parts written
for instruments instead of for actors.

_________________

Spam Lit Spammer: Tom Velasquez

E-mail address: duane.heidelnjbg@horsburghworld.com

Spam Lit Poem: "Palladio Who Beckons from the Other Shore"


E-mail spam has gone "literary," at least on the Bugzita e-mail address: I suppose having "foetry" and "poetry" bandied about on our site invites spammers to get through to us by including bad poetry and prose (keyword spamming?) in their sales pitches--certainly no worse than some of the "valid" published poetry and prose out there.

I thought I'd start a new feature called "The Spam Lit Project," which also serves notice to spammers that their handy work will appear here (without their sales pitches, of course), along with their spammer IDs and e-mail addresses. I have added a permanent announcement on the left panel of this blog.

Some Spam Lit Spammers actually use obscure public domain works for their nefarious purposes; before posting, I'll do a quick Google search to see if this is the case and attribute poems and prose to the original poets and authors. If I miss something, feel free to inform me, and I'll add the original author's or poet's name.

In other words, if you send Spam Lit to the Bugzita address (or any other e-mail address associated with this site and its members' sites), it's fair game. If I can figure out how to post their IP address, I'll do that as well. Al and Matt? Any tips? Is this even legal?
I'm all for protecting people's IDs, but I figure all bets are off for spammers.

I have just registered SpamLit.com (a catch-all domain for all genres of Spam Lit; I've got to cut back on buying domains!), and I will soon post a webpage that will attempt to explain SpamLit and how not to be be fooled by it. I may even start a Wikipedia article about the term, for the term is not my own original idea. Shortly after registering the domain, I found a site called Shovelware that uses the term "Spam Lit," posts Spam Lit work, and allows comments about it.

The Google term, without quotation marks, gets 2,150,000 hits; with quotation marks, 835 Google hits.

I'm surprised (yet thankful) that the domain name was still available.

Without further ado, here's our first Spam Lit poem:

Palladio who beckons from the other shore,
Floating on the sky.
The road, but not far enough ahead
The road, but not far enough ahead
giddy as good kids playing hookey. Now,
Late February, and the air's so balmy
Wheezing ravens, when
Snow haze gleams like sand.
Only a whiter absence to my mind,
So you can watch me watch uplifted snow
Gray the cloud-like oaks
XIII. The Route to the North
then takes a step back, to be safe as she reaches.
grow hot in the parking lot, though they're
I've drifted somewhat from the distant heart
That square—Oh, 56 x 56
Preface to the 1970 Edition
As if your human shape were what the storm
XX. To the Pole

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Spammer: Rod London (which is probably not his/her real name)

Rod London
grohk@rojamwebhosting.com

Feel free to e-mail your appreciation to our Spam Lit spammers!

Bring it on, Spam Lit Spammers!
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