Literary Clusterfucks 2013

throwing this one out there: i can think of one form of poetry that is arguably the prevailing mode of cultural expression atm, at least in america

I sort of compare it to comic books – another once-mighty artform that does piddling numbers to ageing audiences.

comic books sold $274,308,460 retail in bookshops last year, up from $225mil in 2019, $165mil in 2018 and $96mil in 2013. Forty-six of the top 50 were for kids or YA, and eighty-seven of the top 100.

yeah i might humbly submit that manga is taking over the world tbrr

Was being a chauvinist thinking superhero comics - I wonder how much it is without manga, BD etc.

so.. without the most popular examples of the artform.. probably not great!

Americans Raina Telgemeier and Dav Pilkey are 13 of the top twenty (these figures are for North American publishers btw); one manga volume comes in at #18 (My Hero Academia book 1). Pilkey's ten Dog-Man books are 13% of all comics sold through bookstore channels, and the only non-Pilkey, non-Raina book in the top 10 is the 2020 Newbery Award winner.

(NB that both those authors probably sell a greater proportion of their work to libraries and through Scholastic directly than Bezos and bookstores.)

Manga sales are up over 50%, moving $77 million total. Seven MHA, two Demon Slayers, and Uzumaki were the top ten sellers.

throwing this one out there: i can think of one form of poetry that is arguably the prevailing mode of cultural expression atm, at least in america

I hesitate to call Trump worship "poetry"

The slam community may be larger, more diverse, and more accessible than the MFA/academic/publishing-based poetry community. But in my experience, there's little to no crossover between the two, beyond using the word "poetry".

The slam community may be larger, more diverse, and more accessible than the MFA/academic/publishing-based poetry community. But in my experience, there's little to no crossover between the two, beyond using the word "poetry".

not my experience at all but i've only really briefly inhabited any kind of poetry scene

lot of publishing-based poets i know personally had/have at least one foot in the slam scene in their city

Basically the editor is absolutely right, and it's hilarious if poets feel that the possibility of changing the world is somehow essential to being a poet, or that there's something wrong with creating art for a niche community.

Also I'm pretty sure that the poets who do break through to a mass audience would generally be considered 'bad' by poets who did MFAs in poetry.

My experience may not be typical either, but some friends have been running a reading series here for the past decade and brought in all kinds of notable poets, and I've gone to many many events (considering that I'm not really into poetry, lol). The slam scene is generally younger and a totally separate thing, but this is a midwestern university town and things are probably different in a larger city.

Ugh, thinking of a big success hated by myself and others, including Alfred, so can’t even type his name again right now. Of course I don’t have an MFA in poetry, far from it, but still.

Poetry's audience is mostly other poets and literary types, yes. This has been true for a long time. It's art, it's not for everyone, and the pressure for art to be "relevant" or "populist" is one that is driven by hegemonic market forces rather than art itself. Ubiquity does not equal profundity, tho it can, and similarly, obscurity does not equal mediocrity, tho it can.

These aren't difficult propositions. The issue that I see is that a lot of poets seem to want to assuage some sense of guilt by deluding themselves into thinking what they're doing is activism that has a profound effect on the world, when it very clearly is not. BUT! What poems do have an effect on are individual readers, and changing/altering the consciousness of an individual reader is a profound thing, whether that reader is a poet or not. The sooner poets get this into their heads, the better.

Here's an example from my own life, because it's what I know: a young person chose to read my last book for a class they were taking in college, and decided to write their term paper on it. They found my website, filled out a form, and sent me some really interesting questions about the book. I responded, and after a few weeks, they sent me an absolutely astonishing term paper. Of course it means little in the larger scheme of things, but that sequence of events shows me that poetry can have an effect on people and change them, and insofar as that is true, poetry changes the world every day.

Poetry is the language of imagination
Poetry is a form of positive creation
Difficult, isn't it? The point? You're missin it
Your face is in front of my hand so I'm dissin it

Amanda Gorman is the best-selling poet in the country -- OK, low bar, but her book really did sell well -- and quite obviously has a foot in slam world and a foot in traditional poetry world.

I don't wanna change the world
I don't want the world to change me

-Ozzy Osbourne

I wouldn't say that Gorman has a foot in the traditional poetry world— she doesn't have any publications outside of a children's book and a book from a major publisher. The traditional poetry world is in small journals and presses operating on shoestring budgets, and has been for a long time. She's part of the commercial establishment, and her poetry is written to prop up that establishment.

Great story a few posts back, table!

Ugh, thinking of a big success hated by myself and others, including Alfred, so can’t even type his name again right now. Of course I don’t have an MFA in poetry, far from it, but still.

has a foot in slam world and a foot in traditional poetry world.

going back to an earlier analogy -- it would be like if John from Wolf Eyes was given a Guggenheim fellowship for music composition -- that's kinda how I see Gorman in re the "traditional poetry world"

Hint: his initials are not AD.

I'd like to thank Aimless for bringing us together to reflect on how much of a dick move it is to 'dear' one of the few female posters left on ILX.

― Andrew Farrell, Tuesday, September 7, 2021 2:41 PM (yesterday)

thanks for speaking up, Andrew! that post of Aimless' was condescending as fuck, and part of me felt like going off, but honestly, I had work to do IRL and it wasn't worth my time. ... Probably why a lot of people (women esp.) stop posting here.

The traditional poetry world is in small journals and presses operating on shoestring budgets, and has been for a long time.

I consider the traditional poetry world to include the English classes Gorman took at Harvard, which would definitely classify what she does as part of their scope! Like, Jorie Graham would say her poems are poems, right? To me she's part of the traditional poetry world as much as small zero-budget presses but we don't have to use the same nomenclature, just saying what I meant by it.

Thank you for speaking up, sarah. I apologize for the offense given. I thought I was simply playing on the phrase 'oh dear', but apparently I accomplished something more sinister. Andrew's comment was that of a bystander imputing a reaction you had not expressed. Your comment means something.

it was obviously a pun

not to sarah

I didn't see the pun at all, and thought it was a shockingly sexist remark. Going back I can now see where the pun was meant to be, but it was very much not obvious. And the lack of women here is by no means a "canard".

thanks emil.y -- and I appreciate the apology Aimless.

maybe he should have thought about the optics of calling a woman 'dear' but I truly believe it was a good-faith pun gone awkward

and 'that's why all the women have left ilx!' as a response is laughable cmon

I laughed as I temp-banned you from ILAFL for your myopic post

Now do the rest of the site

*cracks knuckles, stretches hamstrings*

so uh who is the big success poet who’s hated by everyone?

"and 'that's why all the women have left ilx!' as a response is laughable cmon" is why all the women have left ilx

referring to james redd’s post

here I thought the main reason given for leaving ilx was "a specific user, suc..." oops! nvm

suc never bothered me

Idk who JR is referencing, I was just thinking of Rupi Kaur-style Instagram poets, lol

Now do the rest of the site

― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, September 8, 2021 12:48 PM (one hour ago)

I am but a humble sub-board mod

One can only try

there's an "Admin" menu, that if you have mod powers over a board, you can do things like ban, unban, threadban, and delete ... if you don't have mod powers, you don't get the special things you can click on -- no special things for me in this thread

I wish I had these special things, is all I can say.

so uh who is the big success poet who’s hated by everyone?

Yeats

Cunt

xp to be fair his death did diminish him

The bell tolls for you imago cuz you’re banned!

not "for thee"? tsk.

I want to apologize to imago. Was just trying to riff on donne. Not pick sides in a pile on.