The World on a Monday

The world on a Monday:

C. Dale Young reports that the Four Way Books Spring collection has moved from pre-order to 4-6 weeks delivery status on amazon.com. They’re almost here!

As well, he has a link to the dust up between The New York Times and The New Yorker. Poetry Daily also has a link to both:

· Dana Goodyear's article. (From The New Yorker).
· David Orr’s riposte to Dana Goodyear's essay. (From The New York Times.)

It’s really worth your time to read both of these articles. As well, the John Barr article is available on line at POETRY’s website.

And then read the AWP retorts:

http://www.awpwriter.org/magazine/writers/fenza02.htm

and

http://www.awpwriter.org/magazine/writers/swade01.htm

Why is all this important? Well, the arguments back and forth really come down to money, power, and visibility. Mostly, no one would notice or care much about John Barr’s thoughts on contemporary poetry if he weren’t the president of a foundation worth 200 million dollars. 200 million dollars puts a lot of advertising smack behind one’s views. As well, David Orr has a bit of criticism of Dana Goodyear and The New Yorker, for the way poetry is treated there . . . visibility. The repeated story becomes the story. And the story of contemporary poetry is being written over our heads by a bunch of people with wide circulation and quite a bit of money.

Here’s my open call to John Barr: Mr. Barr, if you really care about the dissemination of poetry of all kinds, as you said at AWP, then you should also put some money behind an alternative press. Or an alternative press prize. As of now, you’ve put a lot of time and money into a very narrowly defined conception of poetry. It’s time to open the table to more guests.