The Cruelest Month

Started by masterminds at Harper Collins, a new website (www.cruelestmonth.com) is linking to poetry journals, poetry resources, and (gasp) poetry blogs...Sorry David Lehman, I guess there are people who appreciate blogs. Go figure. But don't feel too bad -- as Randy Jackson might say, "you did your thing dawg." At least you had the decency to mention bloggers alongside J-Lo in the same introduction.

As long-term, or maybe even short-term, readers of this blog can probably guess, I approve of this website. I really think that poetry publishers, editors, and poets should work hard to market themselves. It's a tough world out there, folks. Most people watch television and go to movies. Too few people read poetry. Joe Six-Pack Srichipan would much rather buy one of those "novels" than a book of fine poetry. If you publish poetry, you've got to flaunt it at least a little.

And there are books of fine poetry offered by Harper Collins. I'm going to point in alphabetical order, and possibly revealing my biases more than I would like, to Ashbery, Brooks, Bukowski, Dickinson, Doty...ok, I think I'll stop here. The list goes on, and it's a great list.

So instead of saying "shucks, I'm just [name of poet/poetry editor] and don't believe in commercialism and don't care about readers and would be happy if my book sold in the triple digits, and novelists are just so much sexier because they can't shut up about all their 'ideas,'" the poet/poetry editor might say, "You should buy my books of poems and read my poetry, because poetry is so awesome, and so much easier to read on the subway than a cookbook or dietbook or Republican Lovers Weekly."

So, shout out to cruelestmonth.com. Long live blogs!