There is a new phenomena afoot: small press magazines having to ask for submissions.
I had worried that last issue The Journal might have been alone in receiving fewer submissions. Had me worried that The Journal might have given over too much space to reviews. Or that we had in some way caused general offence unbeknownst to me? Then in short order I came across several other, equally well-established poetry magazines here and in the US, asking for submissions.
Now it wasn't so long ago that many magazines, to cut down on the load, put up barriers to submissions. So what has changed?
What immediately comes to mind is online publication. Not in online magazines, but poets putting up single poems on social media, on FaceBook, Twitter, Instagram et al; and thus forfeiting their First Serial Rights to magazine publication.
If that is so, as I strongly suspect it is, with magazine submission guidelines asking for previously unpublished work and stipulating that that includes online publication, it would certainly account for so few submissions. And possibly also for fewer print magazines. But more of them later.
First let me question the wisdom of posting single poems online. I don't know about others' reading habits, but I give poems on social media barely a first glance. I don't go on social media to read poems, use it for news and to interact with distant friends, so I tend to scroll straight on past any poems. I might pause to read an article, rarely a poem. I like to be receptive to poems, to put myself into a poem-reading frame of mind, which is not when scrolling through the daily news feeds.
That's me. So who does read poems online?
Not many, is my guess. A few poetry friends and dutiful family at best. The instant gratification of a few 'Likes', and that will be it, the poem's readership. And that will be it until the poem is included in a collection. That is if a small press publisher will give a second glance to a collection of poems that have been published only on social media, that haven't seen previous publication in any periodicals, that haven't gone through a selection process let alone been edited
What I don't understand is that if a poet wants feedback from a 'safe' group, why not go to local open mikes? The audience would be about the same size as on social media, and being writers themselves they tend to be not at all critical, and if asked might well comment. And just hearing the poem oneself can give one insight to where it might be improved. Plus the fact that at an open mike you never know who is going to be there. At a Birmingham open mike I got offered a collection on the basis of the 3 poems that I had just read. And reading a poem at an open mike, performance even, of itself doesn't count as publication.
Granted submitting to magazines is a chore, especially to those that take a time-wasting age to reply, and then do so with a formatted rejection.
I've often thought that submitting poets should be as strict in their submitting policy as magazines are in theirs. If all poets gave a magazine 4 months to respond, 6 months tops, and then believed themselves free to submit elsewhere, I'm sure editors would up their game.
And I know rejections can be depressing – The Journal rejects 98% of the poems sent – but rejection of itself can be part of the creative process, can make one look again at the work, how it might be improved, be better presented... And one never knows: an editor if inspired might offer feedback for free.
As to the magazines themselves, especially print magazines, the rising cost of postage has hit them hard. Most magazines these days accept email submissions, so no extra expense for the poet there. Nor have print costs shot up that much. It has been the posting out of the magazines that has become so costly and is probably the main reason there are now so few print magazines, most of which are run on a voluntary/unpaid basis. To add now to their miseries with a lack of submissions could see an end to small press magazines altogether. Where then poetry publication?
At open mikes now many poets will have a chapbook, or collection, to wave at the audience. Quite a few of them will have been self-published. Sales will be few.
A question often asked now regards the ease of self-publication is where the gate-keepers, the quality control? In poetry especially if everyone is to have self-published chapbooks and collections, but few readers, and no print magazines – because what's the point? - where do we go from here?
In case anyone has missed the point of this blog, submissions are welcome the year round at The Journal - https://thesamsmith.webs.com/index.htm A response will usually be within the month. And for the foreseeable there will be a change in The Journal submission policy.
Defeated by my own estimation of single poem readership on social media being no more than that at an open mike I can't see that posting there amounts to 'publication'. The Journal will now therefore consider those single poems previously 'published' online.
© Sam Smith 28th March 2023