In It For The Art Or The Money

"Publishing a volume of verse is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo." -Don Marquis

For anyone who takes writing even a little seriously the biggest accomplishment in the world is being published. It is the dream of people of any age who have a short story or a poem that they love, that they would love to share with the world. The excitement and feeling of nervousness when you click the submit button or drop the envelop into the mailbox. The first few weeks of waiting, letting it slowly slip from your mind. Then going to the mailbox and opening that letter, eyes lighting up, heart pounding, and your soul swelling with a feeling of self worth and accomplishment, I know that feeling of accomplishment, but now I am starting to see a sick pattern form in the world of poetry publication.

Writing has been my passion for as long as I can remember. When I gave my first few decent poems to my sixth grade teacher and she told me to enter a contest I was so insanely taken back. Never before in my life had anyone ever told me my work was good enough for publication. I filled out the form and sent it to the company. Months later, after I had completely forgotten about it, I received a letter saying my poem, Friends and Enemies, was going to be published the Anthology of Poetry by Young Americans 1999 edition. I had never been so proud of myself before that moment. To get that book and see my name on the paper…it was the most amazing feeling for a twelve year old just diving into the world of poetry and serious writing. I started writing more and more after that, my poetry steadily improving and my style evolving. I slowly began to fall in love with this form of expression and the more I wrote, the more I express my inner feelings, the more I began to realize that I did not want to be a singer, but a writer. This was what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.

The Internet opened many new doors to me. I made my own website, journal, anything that made my poetry get out there into the real world. I would go from Website to Website reading the poetry of others and feeling that I knew them better than I knew some of my best friends. Poetry became a window and a door into my soul. I loved every minute of my journey.

Sometime during my eighth grade year I found a website called (.com). It was a massive archive of poems from people all around the world. I had found my place. Here, there were contests for poets where I could potentially win money; this concept never struck my mind before that moment. The thought of writing poetry and then winning money for simply putting feelings on paper made me excited. I submitted a short poem or two, posted on the website and became another name in the index. I asked around and people told me to submit a short poem I wrote one day called Day By Day. I kind of shrugged and reluctantly agreed, sending in the poem for a monthly contest and forgetting about it only a few days later. A few months later I received a letter in the mail from . My heart jumped, could there be a check in there for me? There was no check, but a letter saying my poem was going to be published in their poetry book for that year. I think I started to jump and yell. I was so excited. I was being published again! My mother, however, looked at the price of the book and made a face. It was fifty dollars for my book. That price seemed very high for a book, far too much, but my parents were willing to pay for it because I was published in there. I was relieved and a little sad that this kind of thing happened.

Once again, I forgot about my book coming in the mail, like most people do, until it finally came. The box seemed kind of big for a normal sized book, but I thought that maybe they were just being careful so it did not get ruined. Turns out I was wrong. This book was much, much bigger than the last one, the size of a textbook in length and width plus 226 pages long. That really is not that long when it comes to a book, but there were an average of seven poems per page throughout the entire book. I was shocked; I had my own page in the last book, now my work was in tiny font in the corner of a page. I was angry and not nearly as proud. I did the math and that meant that I was one of 1600 people in the book. I carried my research further and found that since 1996 has published over 350 I crunched the number again and found out that that is almost forty-six books a year.

Now onto my current situation: am being published a third time and although it kills me to even think this, but I am hesitant. I know I shouldn’t be, but I am, I am afraid that I am, once again, going to be ripped off. The price is much smaller this time, only twenty dollars compared to fifty, but I don’t want to think that someone is playing me for a fool again. I check my email that I have listed under the site when I have the time and I seem to be getting email after email saying that I have been invited to this conference, but it costs $500 to go there. I won this prize, but I have to be there to accept it. They even sent me a picture of this so-called “prize” with my name obviously Photoshopped into the picture. This website is out there and taking advantage of our dreams, of my dreams, just to make a simple dollar.

Sadly enough, I am not the only person who has been dragged into this before. I talked to a friend in New York who was being published through them and she had no idea what the book was like, but I did not have the heart to kill her confidence. When I posted about my recent publication in an online community I got the following response:

“Under 20 lines? You wouldn't happen to have submitted it to for publishing, would you?

...Cause it seems they publish everything. It's all a bit of a scam, to get you to buy the books, and then they send you e-mail saying you've won prizes that you have to pay astronomical shipping to receive. I tested it with me, my fiancé and my mom, and all three got the same crap. It's a real shame, since it uses people's talents and desire to get published to rake in cash.

Maybe I'm just being cynical, but when they've spammed my inbox asking for money for prizes I feel that way. If the writing was so special, wouldn't they pay to ship the prize?”

She could not be more correct and it is what inspired me to write this essay and newspaper article for my school newspaper on the same topic. It is really sad that these companies are not out there to help young writers like myself, but merely to dig their slimy hands into my wallet. The girl was right, if writing is so special why do they ask such absurd amounts of money? If you really won an important prize, wouldn’t they pay for all of your expenses since they are the ones who are awarding you the prize? And if I could not attend, why is it that I never receive my “prize” in the mail? It is a truly sad thing that so many people are taken into this scam, so much so that is it becoming hard to trust these companies at all. So much so that people with talent and truly something to say will hold back out of fear that their money will be taken from them.

"Poetry is an orphan of silence. The words never quite equal the experience behind them." - Charles Simic. Poetry is a window to the soul; the truest form of expression and these companies know this. They know that we all have something to say and will do anything to get those words out there. So, the companies tell us that we are being published, they tell us that we have won a prize, and then take our money without a second thought. “The words never quite equal the experience behind them” and they never will for reading a poem, writing a poem, is an experience that one cannot explain. A special moment taken away and manipulated by greed.

Pictures:

Prize with my name: without my name: that it is a scam: .

~02/13/04