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Whereas if I were to go looking, I'd more probably look for poetry on my terms than go, oh I haven't run a confessional poem for a while, better go find one.

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That's silly. And at any rate that levels out, doesn't it esp after Foyle. So now the "You're famous, I'm not" card shouldn't apply anymore, if it ever did.

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Not true. You'd only get to read what other people publish, not what is submitted.

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Nick, I've mentioned that I don't consider a more general invitation (ie. "hi everyone, we're open for business!") - what I'd termed Lvl 0 or Lvl 1 -- "solicitation".

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Certainly not the sort that we're debating.

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Let's be constructive. Perhaps we should agree on the best approach to try and expand our catchment area and still stay above board from an editorial integrity POV.

I'd for instance have clearly written CALLS FOR SUBMISSION messages that are widely and publicly distributed in the channels where the likely target audience would be -- networks, other zines, billboards, mailing lists etc.

I might distribute flyers/biz cards to people I'm interested in with information about the journal in general.

I might go as far as to say, hey, we're open for submissions for issue X, send stuff for consideration if you'd like.

What else?

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Thanks for giving me so much credit... I'm not sure I'd give myself quite as much! :)

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One clarification though - your statement (2) only applies in the Poetry section. It doesn't apply at all in the other sections, since the respective editors choose their own stuff... which could be part of the reason I'm much more comfortable asking people if they'd consider contributing to the other sections: I've structured it so I have no yes-vote in those.

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. . . having had fairly good grounding in critical reading and a reasonably wide literary education stretching back to Old English and forward to the pomo stuff being produced today, and even moving out laterally to take in a bit of French and a bit of the classics, I'm probably not too bad when it comes to judging a poem on its own terms. (Though the obscure Japanese forms can still stump me...) Whereas if I were to go looking, I'd more probably look for poetry on my terms than go, oh I haven't run a confessional poem for a while, better go find one.

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To use an analogy, if I were blind-tasting a bottle of Harlan Estate I could easily acknowledge that its winemaking was of a very high standard without necessarily caring much for the wine; but if I were choosing a wine to drink I'm infinitely more likely to pick an Henri Pellé Menetou-Salon or a Coulée de Serrant; the winemaking behind these wines are competent (in the latter case, barely!), but the wines are themselves more to my tastes.

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As for the "mistake", I don't think Alf's got his salt-shaker out; but I'm surprised that having already encountered one such problem you continue not to accept the point that soliciting creates the conditions for such problems and/or continue to be sanguine about your ability to circumvent all such problems in the future.

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Is the obligation still there in 2(a), where you state that it's for consideration?

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I think 1 is a form of soliciting. Once you approach specific writers, you're expressing interest in their stuff in particular; what results can't really be called a general submission, I think.

-- your quote 2 answers quote 1. Yes, there is an obligation.

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Also the possibility of writers of quality waiting to be solicited instead of freely submitting good work.

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sure, but a credible journal with an open submission system would attract the good ones too. You might not get the Alfians without asking -- but I take it that it's QLRS's stance really not to beg...

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and you begin to see my pt I hope, and how it all ties in with the quality vs integrity issue.

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yes, and thats coz said Softblow editor was invited to a HCJC poetry event and made friends...

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"something to aim for" might well be journal publication in the first instance and ultimately one's own collection.

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Having journals around also takes the pressure off the need to get one's books out too early (and avoid, for instance, the sort of polemic slash-editing that One Fierce Hour underwent... you shld've seen the manuscript vs the final book).

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I don't think anyone is arguing that they'd rather not publish quality work. I think we're saying, in the context of this thread, that we'd like to presevere a certain editorial integrity while doing so, for the good of the long-term literary environment.

Evoluntionarily, it makes sense to mark and exploit small positive steps forward since revolutionary leaps are not always possible (what are you gonna do, ONLY publish Alfian?). And better that growth be organic (free submissions from the open field), than over-engineered (solicitation), at least in this society where we already have too much of the latter.

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Everyone worships and emulates the rockstars, but who looks after the scene that makes them possible? How did you even encounter Alfian in the 1st place if not for an entire value chain, with its mediocrities and inadequacies notwithstanding?

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Also the possibility of writers of quality waiting to be solicited instead of freely submitting good work.

Okay, that's a fair point. Is it really such a big concern, though? What could be behind such a reaction besides laziness and pride? Would it be so common, do you think?

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I think you're injecting unnecessary machismo into what is at heart a pretty innocent transaction. Inviting a submission from a writer whose work you find interesting is not begging.

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Surely it can be due to his friendliness with them as well as furthering a (commendable) developmental/representative goal. Of course, I'm no mind-reader.

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I think we can agree that a generation of Raymond Fernandos would not do much good for Singapore's literary future.

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That's a point I have to admit I hadn't considered. There does seem to be a focus on getting a book out and not so much on putting out individual poems via journals. I couldn't say if this is changing or not, but if it is, I feel it would be just as much due to improved standards as increased opportunities (i.e more venues). How meaningful publication in a journal is perceived to be is tied to the journal's overall quality.

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I think I saw a brief mention of the cuts inflicted on One Fierce Hour in an interview with Alfian posted somewhere I can't remember now. That's unfortunate, but to be fair, it seems to have worked out for him, hasn't it?

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It's not either-or: we can have journals charting organic growth as well as journals where the quality is engineered (over-engineered is unfair).

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Of course all these people are valuable and to be commended, but what I am saying is this: visible excellence is what most inspires young writers to keep at it, not consolation prizes for effort. Of course the two can work together--my point is that a high-quality venue indirectly furthers the developmental goal simply by running high-quality work; it isn't shirking responsibility.

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I'd write you something back about free verse,
had your comment not been such twee verse...

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I don't think that taste does not (unfortunately) affect technical judgement, but I do believe it is possible to strive towards objectivity in the exercise of critical thought.
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With poetry, I would suggest that technical judgement is achieved by reading it against its objectives. If a certain L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poet believes that the extent of materiality in his poetry retards reading enough to concentrate attention on the words because of the difficulty of gliding over the words... well, does it? Or has the parataxis been decontextualised so that we merely indulge in the consumption of the language? Or, on an even simpler level, if someone has set out to write a villanelle, do the right lines repeat at the right places, and (assuming there isn't a contrary agenda) are they harmonious?

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The whole thread is starting to wind round in circles. I think I shall try to close my part in it by saying: I don't think soliciting (individuals) is a good thing and I would certainly continue to work around it; but it's no biggie to me if other editors choose to do it.

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I do not have your expertise ... but as for the villanelle example, how is the harmoniousness (or lack thereof) of the repeating lines not a matter of taste? And when the line-repetition breaks the traditional rules of a villanelle, is it failure of form or an appropriate variation on it (i.e. does the divergence from the formal norms serve the content)? There is a point where purely technical judgement pulls up short and taste must take over, even in a supposedly 'objective' assessment of a poem.

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Just about all the recently published work by senior writers such as E Thumboo were solicited. ET's work at least has been sitting around for a while... So yes, it happens.

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Now, the argument might be, is it not better for their work to be made available by someone asking for it? The answer is yes. Does that mean a journal like QLRS is the best platform to solicit such work? I'd say not...

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and inviting is not *soliciting*, really. I think we're all agreed that

a. a general friendly invitation to submit for consideration without obligation is prob ok.

b. however we don't want to have to do that for every piece in every issue.

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nothing wrong with that. but it begs the question, why HCJC vs RJC or AJC or SAJC etc. etc. It's perfectly ok since Softblow is a private gallery -- which does not have the same cultural/social obligations as a more general journal such as one with the espoused goals of QLRS.

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but will it do HARM tho? The presence of and accolades heaped onto the likes of Lim Hsin Hsin (and some other brand-name poets I could mention) have not necessarily stifled the poetry scene either.

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Agree of course. The general route for a career poet really is through journals (and a variety of them) to build presence, credibility and readership. Go look at the volumes by your Heaneys and Muldoons -- a good percentage of the pieces are acknowledged as having first appeared in journals.

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Books collect the "best-ofs", and of course offer a certain coherence as a volume. But that means that journals also have a role as a platform for incidental work, etudes, experiments, tangents etc that might not ever get into collections. HM has plenty of those, for instance.

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commercially, polemically and in terms of popularity, yes. Editorially, I think he lost a whole second voice -- the one I prefer, actually. Early PBB published some of the (now) lost works. Pity about the rest... I'd have gotten them out if I'd known they weren't going to show up in the final print run.

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What I'm saying is that in creating the conditions that result in high-quality work, inspirational examples of conspicuous excellence alone are not enough (even if they are perhaps useful to some).

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Having an LKY to admire doesn't breed a nation of men like him. There's a lot of infrastructure, dirty work, plus an eco-system that includes the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th tier talents, which together prop up the pyramid. I'm interested in the building of that wider ecosystem.

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Then again, I come from a pre-CAP environment where we had to figure it out all by ourselves, with no local role-models to emulate (and remaining rather skeptical about the whole idol-worship business, really).

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The plain fact is that to this day, I find very very few poets in Singapore genuinely pleasurable to read, and none consistently so. If I were to go for the A+ approach in running a Singapore journal, there'd not be enough for more than 2 issues, solicited or otherwise.

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Yes, but recall that your argument was that regular soliciting will create an atmosphere where established writers would rather wait to be asked than submit work of their own accord. This example does not support your claim as it doesn't in any way point to the prevalence of solicitation as its cause.

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I can understand why you'd say that (if after all a journal *should* by its nature be focussed on *current* developments in writing), but what would a good platform be, in your opinion? An anthology, I guess?

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Eh, I wouldn't have seen any problem with it if QLRS had run that feature instead. You can't fit everyone into the spotlight at the same time; running a feature on a particular literary group that's noteworthy in some way isn't, IMHO, at odds with the goals of 'a more general journal' at all. Quite the opposite.

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I think it does some tiny amount of harm by making local literature look a bit laughable at times.

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-- But the literary traditions that have thrown up the Heaneys and Muldoons and Ann Carsons has also given us poetry.com and more scammers and hacks than we can name...

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I hope we can leave behind the side-effect of turning the publication of a collection into something akin to an RPG--

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--- It's a bit late for that I'm afraid. I think you'll find that your Foyle label for instance is already opening some doors for you. (Charisma + 1; +5 against scholarship committees; Cure Light Obscurity 3x a week).

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The one thing I *like* about the current weakness of the journal scene (relative to elsewhere) is how as a consequence, editors don't expect to see a quintillion publishing credits before you have a shot.

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-- Well, your A+ grade publishing houses DO expect to see certain credentials before they will publish -- less so the journals. Our scene is still too young for that sort of snobbery. Which is a GOOD thing, really, even though I'd have liked a lot more discernment and editorial discipline at the book publication stage of a writer's career.

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Point taken. Strange, though, that writer-specific books should house the material of most interest to a general audience (the 'best-ofs'), while journals house the work that's of more interest (I'd think) to readers with a particular interest in the writer, incidental work, experiments and all.

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-- well because we're a cult of personality. If you think about it, journals collect work across a broader span of interests and tastes (if you don't like page 4, turn to page 7). With individual books, you have to really like the writer to invest. Again, I do think the indiv collections here ought to be tighter than they tend to be.

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I'm not saying it's better off cut, but it does appear to have been better off released cut than not released at all.

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-- -- You're assuming the material would not have been included by another more discerning publisher..... Put it this way: he didn't stick with the same publisher between books did he?

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What exactly has happened to the 'lost works'?

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-- they are now aprocrypha[sp] lor...

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What I'm saying is that in creating the conditions that result in high-quality work, inspirational examples of conspicuous excellence alone are not enough (even if they are perhaps useful to some).

I never said it was enough, generally speaking.p

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-- and what I put to you is that some of the compromises we've chosen to make are in the interest of these other conditions.

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It's difficult to disagree with your points on infrastructure and dirty work, but what precisely is the role of 2nd-nth tier talents in the pyramid (other than of hopefully moving up to become first-tier talents)? I'm not claiming there isn't any other role; I'm just unclear on what it is.

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-- A few crude non-exhaustive examples:
1. aspiring poets buy other poets' books, expanding the market.

2. aspiring poets pay for workshops, readings, MFAs in Creative Writing etc., giving other (presumably better) poets a means of making a living.

3. aspiring poets support the general infrastructure through readership, subscription, support and their own networks. A 2nd tier poet who's a 1st tier lawyer/banker/property consultant can work wonders for the community. Just look at that US$100 Mil donation to Poetry magazine....

4. Even 2nd tier writers can have readable/publishable/newsworthy work on occasion.

Loo, the same thing happens in politics. Out of 100+ parliamentarians, perhaps only a handful are the real movers and shakers. The rest make up the (necessary) critical mass just by showing up.

[quote] Of course, whether it's Alfian or anyone else who causes this awakening in a particular young writer is besides the point. It's not a personality thing.

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-- well the Thumboos and Lee Tzu Phengs have done that for the people of their time and continue to do so. Even if they may not be A+...

[quote]
Your candour is refreshing. I'm certainly not advocating that you take such an approach (as I've stated, I dropped prescriptiveness early in the thread), especially since, if I'm reading you right, you don't get as many submissions you consider instant-yes/A+ as QLRS does as it is.

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We know these works exist because they were sent in only upon solicitation (by the NORA project team, for instance).

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Yup. Or an archival project like say NORA - ie. museum/gallery type places.

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yes, but the choice of feature is arbitrary (or rather, dependent on the editor's personal connections) rather than what is [more, genuinely, generally] newsworthy. You see the difference? If QLRS were to suddenly do a feature on performance poetry because it was a genuinely noteworthy trend in contemporary literary development, that's fine. But if it's only because the editor just got hooked up with a Slam Poet goth chick and her friends...

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But the literary traditions that have thrown up the Heaneys and Muldoons and Ann Carsons has also given us poetry.com and more scammers and hacks than we can name...

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It's a bit late for that I'm afraid.

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Well, your A+ grade publishing houses DO expect to see certain credentials before they will publish -- less so the journals. Our scene is still too young for that sort of snobbery. Which is a GOOD thing, really. . . .

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. . . even though I'd have liked a lot more discernment and editorial discipline at the book publication stage of a writer's career.

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well because we're a cult of personality. If you think about it, journals collect work across a broader span of interests and tastes (if you don't like page 4, turn to page 7). With individual books, you have to really like the writer to invest. Again, I do think the indiv collections here ought to be tighter than they tend to be.

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You're assuming the material would not have been included by another more discerning publisher..... Put it this way: he didn't stick with the same publisher between books did he?

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they are now aprocrypha[sp] lor...

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and what I put to you is that some of the compromises we've chosen to make are in the interest of these other conditions.

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Originally posted by Nicholas Liu

Alvin:

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We know these works exist because they were sent in only upon solicitation (by the NORA project team, for instance).

Yes; my point is that it isn't due to an atmosphere of prevalent solicitation that these pieces weren't submitted earlier, which was what you claimed would happen ('the possibility of writers of quality waiting to be solicited instead of freely submitting good work'). If the example of Thumboo supports this claim, I do not see how.

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-- There was an open call for submissions (for NORA) among published writers. It was ignored by many who received it but waited to be asked instead.

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I'm not so inclined to scrutinise the motivations of such things. As far as I can tell, what's going on in HCJC is genuinely noteworthy as a(n unusually active) cross-section of the state of student writing. It doesn't matter to me how Softblow came to feature their writing.

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-- I completely agree in this specific instance. But you were asking about the potential pitfalls of solicitation.

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But the literary traditions that have thrown up the Heaneys and Muldoons and Ann Carsons has also given us poetry.com and more scammers and hacks than we can name...

Yes, of course, and these also do their poetry scenes various amounts of harm.

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-- they are an inevitable part of any ecology.

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. . . even though I'd have liked a lot more discernment and editorial discipline at the book publication stage of a writer's career.

I agree, but then again, what one person sees as a necessary flensing of fat from a manuscript, others (and particularly, I'd think, the writer!) might see as 'slash-editing'.

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-- yes, and that's why picking only "A+" material is so dangerous when there's no alternative bucket.

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I think it may not have had the same impact had it come out later. Of course, this sort of speculation on possible futures isn't too productive--and at any rate I'm inclined to agree with you that <i>One Fierce Hour</i> would have been better uncut (not having read the cut poems, but based off <i>A History of Amnesia</i>, where I preferred the more personal poems).

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-- the original manuscripts came by me, but another publisher got there first based on a personal recommendation/endorsement by an established writer (whom I shall not name).

[quote]they are now aprocrypha[sp] lor...

Any idea why they didn't go into the second book?

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