Literary Clusterfucks 2013

seems like her point has been made

when you're done being the poetry editor of barren magazine

One of the reasons the literary scene is so bad is bcz most ppl in it think it's a conversation with each other. They don't believe this is for anyone outside of it.

She will be replaced with someone who believes the same thing as her.

tfw when you get sacked for misaligned vision

Jumping off the Barren Mag gravy train, how will she recoup those millions?

https://themillions.com/

Why would you name your literary magazine that.

of course Big Poetry is shutting down one of its best voices

Loool.

No one knows who she is, btw, and her CV is full of crap publications. I also read some of her work— not too remarkable.

No one knows who she is, btw

Of course not; she's a poet! (rimshot)

I meant within poetry. (BTW, I harbor no illusions about poetry's audience, and find this whole maelstrom that she started rather tiresome. I've won awards for my poetry— the only people who care are people who already care).

Why would you name your literary magazine that.

I'm surprised at the reaction here. To me, what she said is basically true and p much benign. She wasn't saying poetry shouldn't try to reach beyond its insular world, she was merely saying that the poetry world is insular.

what she said is basically true and p much benign.

I agree 100%. The only thing that makes this different from you or I or almost anyone else in the world saying the very same thing is that she worked for a literary magazine as its poetry editor. Declaring to the world that the very section of the magazine you are charged with overseeing is irrelevant to any of its readers who are not poets is a good way to tell most of its subscribers they are wasting part of their money. Literary magazines struggle hard enough to stay afloat already.

god forbid magazine editors tell the truth

She shouldn't have been sacked for it. That world is too far gone for it to matter.

Start a petition!

Write a letter to the editor!

Whole thing is unpleasant for various reasons.

if she hadn't have been sacked, would we even be posting about this? I hadn't heard of her or this magazine before this, and I am somewhat familiar with "the scene". Compared to the previous thread topics of racism and transphobia, pointing out that contemporary poetry is pretty cloistered is whatever

Relatedly -- whatever happened with the SPD clusterfuck?

Well some have accused her of racism and the people who sacked her of transphobia

Declaring to the world that the very section of the magazine you are charged with overseeing is irrelevant to any of its readers who are not poets is a good way to tell most of its subscribers they are wasting part of their money.

I don't think I know a single living poet (under or over 60) that doesn't critique the poetry world with the implication "we should do better" tbh

emily & sarahell otm, all the Marge Simpson “it’s true but she shouldn’t say it” reactions are weird as hell

Yeah

Being poetry editor of a literary magazine is also a pretty strong indication of her commitment to the enterprise, which I'd think entitles her to express some pessimism about its significance.

I don't spend time in that teapot, so its tempests do not disturb my calloused heart.

I think standard operating procedure around is to state that anyone who becomes a victim of Twitter basically deserved it, and even if they didn’t who cares

Re your question about SPD, Sarahell:

The original complainant was joined by another. At the same time, a fake "Poets Union" formed and tried to start a boycott of SPD and some of the presses it distributes. The remaining workers there didn't call for this boycott, the Poets Union persisted, there was an impasse, things died down except in the world of the original complainant, who seems to be a grievance machine tbqh.

Basically, there was a huge shitstorm in...April or May. The original complainant totally showed that their intention was to try to destroy SPD rather than reform it, and most people in the literary world said, "nope, and no to this weird cadre of shitty leftist poets, too."

feel like the first few replies itt by call all destroyer, xyzz, james, joan chachi, table, aimless are a sadly generic example of the reflexive impulse to justify ppl getting canned due to twitter flameouts. ‘she should have written it in an essay’, ‘her poetry/the magazine is bad anyway’, ‘she’s wrong to acknowledge that only poets read poetry because poetry shouldn’t be a conversation(?).’ the proper reaction to this is ‘lol a substantial fraction of poets are properly deluded about the size of the reading audience.’ the replies to her tweet are an incredible and hilarious display of how out of touch poetry ppl are—one person said “poetry is actually really popular if you count slam”. this is like if wolf eyes got dropped from their label for saying ‘not many ppl listen to noize tapes’

emily & wins otm

lol i'm literally just being pragmatic maybe don't express your (possibly valid) thoughts about the viability of your industry in a medium that discourages detailed and nuanced thinking?

like she can do whatever she wants and i am not in any way justifying her loss of employment for that but tell me why twitter is a good medium for the thing she's trying to get across?

flopson's seeing all those replies as 'generic' is enough to give away how much effort was put into reading them. as for me, i wasn't 'justifying' her termination so much as saying I could see how that tweet was unwise, given her position, as opposed to untrue. she was essentially correct enough that I don't disagree with her tweet.

but the fact us that opinions about canning someone may be within the sphere of twitter comments, but the decision to can someone isn't. her boss canned her. her boss was able to justify her termination to themself. it happened. it's done. and our comments are just so much, uh, shall we say... twittering, after the fact.

do you think it would it help any if I deplored it? yeah. maybe some other commenter would declare me 'otm'. that's about it.

the proper reaction to this is ‘lol a substantial fraction of poets are properly deluded about the size of the reading audience.’ the replies to her tweet are an incredible and hilarious display of how out of touch poetry ppl are—one person said “poetry is actually really popular if you count slam”. this is like if wolf eyes got dropped from their label for saying ‘not many ppl listen to noize tapes’

― flopson, Tuesday, 7 September 2021 bookmarkflaglink

The couple of poetry slams I've been to have had readings by minorities and women and people who are not employed in the literary culture sector. They were enthusiastically attended and the crowd in both performing and in attendance were younger than the audience attending more literary poetry in bookshops I have also attended.

Why are you typing this ignorant dismissal of it?

this is like if wolf eyes got dropped from their label for saying ‘not many ppl listen to noize tapes’

not really ... it's a different type of relationship ... besides, Wolf Eyes have released stuff on multiple labels

#PsychoPoetry #TripPoetry

feel like the first few replies itt by call all destroyer, xyzz, james, joan chachi, table, aimless are a sadly generic example of the reflexive impulse to justify ppl getting canned due to twitter flameouts.

― flopson, Monday, September 6, 2021 10:41 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

so otm i am getting it framed

i don't know why people love the spectacle -- really, the blood sport -- of people getting fired for expressing anodyne opinions, but it's a very harsh feature of our current world.

poetry's relative marginalization is simply a fact. poetry editors should be free to explore its consequences for poets and readers.

do you think it would it help any if I deplored it? yeah. maybe some other commenter would declare me 'otm'. that's about it.

Are you questioning the impact my otms have on the world?

Feel like there is a difference between our unthinking first takes on this thread vs. like if we piled on on that tweet or something but whatever

given how people continue to willfully misread what i was saying i might as well be on twitter

Lol, yeah.

I have been agreeing with you throughout thread but I am afraid to do so again lest we get into it due to the Bad Juju Narcissism of Small Differences associated with the LCF2013 thread and LCFs in general.

we should do updates on the CFs chronicled here since 2013

I never justified anyone getting canned, so kindly shut the fuck up and don't put words in my mouth.

I just noted that no one knew who she was and her poetry is shite. She even noted on her Twitter page that the tweet went viral, and did so proudly. It looks like she wanted the attention. That's fine!

The thing that many of you seem to not understand is that— horror of horrors— no one gets paid for doing this poetry stuff. Getting your name taken off the masthead of a publication is crappy, but it's not the end of the world. I don't think it should have happened, fwiw, but I still think her poetry is shite.

and even if they didn’t who cares

imho a tweet is a perfectly appropriate format to express a simple and and unobjectionable idea that should require no further elaboration or hedging, maybe she could have done it as a poem but then nobody would have read it