It was a nice evening, well-attended by prospective students and the local literary community. I was the only program poet there... and tired and stressed and generally not in good form. When it came time for Q & A I slurred a question about poetry publishing that included the phrase "Gray House." Oh dear.
The readings were fantastic. I've heard parts of The Latehomecomer before, and this different excerpt did not disappoint. Kao Kalia Yang has a high-pitched voice that contributes to her memoir's urgent tone. It's always nice to get more exposure to the work of recent program grads, and Nicole Johns' work was excellent. Salvatore Scibona's novel was lively and inventive, his demeanor charming and funny.
The panel discussion wasn't too relevant to poetry publishing, about literary agents and decisions on the numbers of copies to print. The response to my question was basically that since poetry is "protected" from the marketplace there are generally less unknown factors: print-runs will always be small. But the comments about author-promotion apply to poets very much. The panelists emphasized forming relationships with people in the literary community: your fellow students will one day be running journals and reading series... keep in touch for your book tour! "Web-Presence" is also important, and they seemed to think we should be cultivating that nebulous entity now... which probably means I should stop avoiding those social networking sites, ugh! Author websites were also mentioned, but that's a step I personally don't feel the need to take until one has a book to sell. Unless of course you have a super-dope project like CAM!!!
Edit: on the subject of author websites, I've added links to the three readers. They certainly represent a diverse range of styles/approaches.
1 comment:
so, i was skimming through some internets this evening and found your blog here, talking about poetry and books and such.
i like it (your blog) a lot.
keep posting what you're reading, what you want to read, and what you're keeping an ear out for.
thanks.
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