In the ever informative Huffington Post, Travis Nichols takes a look at the current state of small press poetry publishing and sees much to be admired.
From the story...
What these presses have done during the poetry publishing revolution of the past fifteen years is to constantly ask what poetry is. Is it what Norton and FSG say it is? Is it what Def Poetry Jam says it is? The Poets Laureate? Or is it something else? They've allowed themselves to be continually surprised by the answers. It's negative capability in action. Presses like Ugly Duckling chase the ineffable spirit of poetry through rhyme, blank verse, prose, erasure, typography--whatever manifestations they catch a glimpse of it in.
For some people, this can be confusing--some people want a poem to look, sound, and read in a consistent way. But for readers like myself, I love the chase. I love not knowing if what I'm reading is any good or not. And if a small press is any good, there's always a risk that it's going to publish something you'll hate.
This confusion is the same thing I love about poetry as it manifests itself in digital media. Though you could see the online poetry world as a threat to the small press world, I think of them as correspondents. They're both constantly in flux. Are these poems? What are we supposed to do about these live online readings at HTMLGiant? Can a text message be a poem? A voice mail? A tweet?
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