Following Walt

Having had my life straddle the internet revolution–I graduated grad school with an MFA in Creative Writing (Poetry) from the University of Arkansas in 1984 when the height of technology was an IBM Selectric with a white-out ribbon, and I am now writing a blog post on my touchscreen desktop computer–I am struggling to come to terms with the whole notion of publication and the role of an editor.

In the old days (pre-internet when all submissions were stuffed into envelopes and snail-mailed to the hallowed addresses found in the Writers Market), an editor served a very important role as a conduit to publication. If I wanted a poem to appear in a certain magazine, like the Black Warrior Review or Prairie Schooner, I sent my best stuff along with a self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE) and a prayer and hoped for an acceptance letter within the next season or so. The editor served two roles then: validator of the worth of my poem and facilitator of its publication. And these roles went hand in hand. I was at the mercy of a single person (or editorial board or committee or whatever) because that process was the ONLY one at the time that resulted in a poem being included in a collection enshrined on paper stitched between slick artsy covers.

But now we live in the new days. This very blog post is testament to the fact that I can publish anything I want to an audience that mega-eclipses the meager subscriptions of even the most popular paper-based lit mags and rivals most web-based 'zines. Editors today have lost one of their roles. While they can still validate the worth of the poets they choose to include in their publications (by whatever criteria they choose), they are no longer necessary as facilitators of publication. Anyone who can shell out around $75 annually to host his or her own website can reach a potential audience of millions, tens of millions.

So my struggle centers on my hesitance to ignore the editor’s role as validator. It’s not so much my lack of self-confidence in what I write as much as it is the audacity it takes to lay the words out there unfiltered by any process. I have friends that I respect very much who are editors, and I admire the job that they do. But, here is where I follow Walt. Whitman, that is. Self-publication is certainly nothing new, and, without it, too much of the canon of literature would have been lost. Whitman not only self-published the first edition of Leaves of Grass, but he also favorably reviewed the book anonymously in several newspapers. D. H. Lawrence and Stephen Crane also bankrolled early works. The argument almost certainly boils down to whether words have an audience or not. Of course, there have been way too many examples of bad writers spending their own money to publish bad writing. But it is the audience that determines bad. Why not share a work that might strike a chord above the din of me-too fan fiction and self-absorbed doggerel?

I think it all comes down to audience. If a writer can connect and communicate in a meaningful and genuine way, then I don’t think an editor matters. The logistics of publication are there for everyone. The chaff will fall, and the words that connect us as thoughtful people will rise like bright dust motes in our afternoon windows when supper is simmering on the stove and we are calling for our own to come to the table. I’m going to step into the future. I hope to bring you with me.