through the motions

postscript to this post: http://knottprosepo.blogspot.com/2012/05/way-it-goes.html 
:
I notice that Four Way Books has this submission window coming up at the end of this month—
maybe I should send the "Selected" to them as well as Field, though of course they won't take it either, will they, ha ha—

The June Reading Period

Submissions accepted June 1 - 30

Poetry and short fiction

For a book-length collection of poetry written in English, regardless of publication history. We will also read short story collections, and consider novellas of between 80 - 200 pages (or thereabouts).

Publication and a reading in NYC.
$28.00 reading fee.
Submit online or by mail between June 1 - June 30. Guidelines will be posted at the end of May.



/
For over a decade now I have given my books away free, 

either printing them myself at home and mailing them out to libraries and poetry "centers" and MFA programs and bookstores,

and or posting them onto Lulu.com as free downloadable ebooks,

and what have I gotten for my efforts?  You know: Nothing but contempt and disdain.  

I am a laughingstock to everybody in the world of poetry, an object of ridicule, a pariah

sneered at and spat on by all.  

I know that in the little time I have left to live I will never be able to attain any dignity or sense of self-worth, 


and that I will die in this ignominy and shame.

And sending my worthless "books" out to these contests and publishers is an utterly stupid and hopeless effort, as futile and foolish as my failed attempts in the field of poetry have always been . . .


///

way it goes

*
I paid the fee and submitted my "Selected Poems 1960-2012" to the book contest at Oberlin,
and just got this email back:


Dear Bill Knott,

Thank you for entering SELECTED POEMS 1960-2012 in the 2012 FIELD Poetry Prize contest. All entries will be read carefully by the editors of Oberlin College Press. The contest winner will be announced later this summer on our website.

Your subscription to FIELD will begin with the fall issue.

Best wishes,

The Editors 

/

Well, they won't take it, of course.   The fee pays for a year's subscription to FIELD magazine, so I guess it's not a complete loss of money.

But they won't choose me for the prize.  I never won any book contest I entered, and this won't be any different.

Everybody and their shit knows I've been blacklisted by the glucklords and seidelcrats and hasshitlers at AmeriPoBiz Inc, I'm persona non grata: no legitimate publisher like Oberlin will touch a pariah like me.

Way it goes.


///

postscript, 05/23/12: 
today I asked Oberlin to withdraw and delete my "Selected" manuscript from the contest, and they very kindly complied with my request.  I should never have submitted anything in the first place, because there could never be any chance of my success in such a venture.


/

NOT FIT TO LICK

*
Do you know this anthol:
 

• Contemporary American Poetry, 8th Edition
• A. Poulin, Jr. - Late of State University of New York, College at Brockport
• Michael Waters - Salisbury University
• ISBN-10: 0618527850  ISBN-13: 9780618527854 
• 720 Pages  Paperback 
• ©2006     Published

Contemporary American Poetry, the 8th Edition, published 2006 by Wadsworth Publishing Company. 

The paperback list price is $119.95, though you can get it on Amazon for less.

One hundred and nineteen dollars and ninety-five cents.

Its editors are listed as A. Poulin, Jr. and Michael Waters, though Poulin's been dead well over a decade now, the last edition he did was I think the 6th, published in 1996.  Waters has edited the last two editions by himself (though he may have retained some of Poulin's picks).
 
A new version of this anthology used to be published every five years, but no 9th edition has appeared, and this 8th from 2006 is still in print (I copied the image above from the Wadsworth online catalog just minutes ago—)

I wonder if this is still read in schools today—Are any higher-ed courses in poetry using this anthology?  

/
The 7th edition came out in 2001. 

And I was in the 7th edition!—

Yes, there I was, right after the Pulitzer Prize winning poets Kinnell and Kizer,

and right before the Pulitzer Prize winning poets Komunyakaa and Kumin,

there was the Knotthead with several pages of pokey little poems,

and everybody who looked at that suspicious insert surely said:

'Now how the fuck did that weako sneak in there between those REAL poets, those PULITZER poets?'

However it happened, I was in the 7th edition. For half a decade, I was part of "Contemporary American Poetry."

I was included! After so many years of excludedness, I was in. In the 7th edition.

But I ain't in the 8th. 

*
Anyway, there I was, for one bright shining hour (okay, five years), right in the midst of those authentic poets as if I was one of them somehow.

It was like a TV reality show (American Poetry Idol) where they pluck some schmuck out of nowhere

and suddenly he's sharing the screen with allstars whose plaque in the sidewalk he's not fit to lick.

///

...

appreciation of a Rutger Kopland poem

this and my other "appreciations" have been transferred 

to the 'good' prose blog (see top link sidebar)

appreciation of a Camille Martin sonnet—

this and the other "appreciations" have been transferred 

to the 'good' prose blog (see top link sidebar)

appreciation of a Carol Ann Duffy poem

this and the other "appreciations" have been transferred 

to the 'good' prose blog (see top link sidebar)