Readings, Rated
Tribune, why must you enrage me so?
I am not understanding what this article is “about.”
Too many writers being able to publish their own work electronically is bad for literature? Self-publishing dumbs down the art? Poetry should only be written by those who treat it with seriousness? (If so, Auden said it better, here).
Sure, all those things are easy to agree with, but seriously? This is one of the 3 main feature articles in the new, Saturday Books section of the CHICAGO TRIBUNE, a newspaper with an 8-million person readership, and written by Julia Keller, who once won a Pulitzer, “for her poignant three-part series on a deadly tornado that struck Utica, Ill”? As my grandmother would have said, “shame.”
I’ve had better, more interesting and conclusive discourse about self-publishing whilst drunk in a room full of zinesters. Also, I am tired of that Flannery O’Connor quote being used to put people in their place.
Shakespeare’s a click away with technology
By Julia Keller
Tribune cultural critic
Published May 20, 2007
“Edgar Allan Poe has a lot to answer for. It was Poe, after all, who self-published his first book of poems, thus giving hope to rhymesters everywhere who have found themselves dissed, ignored and inadvertently humiliated by mainstream publishers. Poe is the name often dropped by disgruntled poets whose dens are wallpapered with rejection slips (”Dear Sir or Madam: While your epic poem cycle on the history of the world’s oceans is fascinating, we regret to say t it does not meet our needs at the present time.”) Because the act of writing often is posited as little more than opening one’s soul the way one would a can of ravioli, many people are under the mistaken impression that they can do it. We all have souls, after all.” For full article, click here.
Edited to add: Okay, I am slightly appeased by another article of Keller’s this week; basically her love-letter to books and what is in them. I’m a softie for that kind of thing.