Getting Published

*

GETTING PUBLISHED

>1. it just occurred to me

I once told a nice young boy

hot and heavy to get into my college

and be the next Hemingway

(i was like that too, once)

who asked, “How do I get published?”

>

You know, writing isn’t about getting published;

writing is about community

>>2. Just the facts

anyway, this is how it happened:

>

last july, the unbearably hot one following

my 42^nd birthday

>

i stopped by without thinking

the rack of cheap books

at 4 seasons

and bought a book of tanka by

some japanese monk you

never heard of

>

well, the form

was interesting

and

>

the book was only $4

so though I only had $10,

I bought it

>>3. West Virginia Weeds & the Muse

then

>

about a week later,

I was working in

our garden

pulling weeds and

>

i spaced out

>

then

that night I thought of the book

and how I’d wanted to write a poem about being in

West Virginia

>

and so I did

>>3. Pinch bugs

why is it digressions

are always so much more interesting

than the assigned topic?

>

whatever, it’s the reason

why we poets, like tom sawyer, are

always guilty of playing with pinch bugs

during the sermon

why we are

always caught playing hooky on that craggy

digression

called parnassus

>>4. The Inside Track

so then there was that community

that fellowship of poets

that hobo convention

called bookends

>

and

well,

I didn’t even have to send an envelope

they were interested

>

maybe it was because I’m always bitching about how hard it is

to get published (though, truth to tell, i’ve never tried

that hard) or

>

maybe it

was because they liked

me (or maybe it’s because i’m good—who knows?) whyever

>

it happened

>>5.  & yes, community

remember the japanese monk? hmmmm

>

he lived during the 14^th century

rich people actually paid him to run

poetry storming seminars in their houses

>

imagine that

>

of course he had his problems:

came from the wrong family,

ran afoul of the local politics

and

THAT night

When his house burned TO ASH &

20,ooo

of HIS POEMS TOO

>

AND all he had for comfort

was a religion that embraces void

>

and silence, the void and silence that sent

Pascal (and, let’s face it, most of the rest of us)

shrieking into the arms of a god

who at least offers

unoblivion

>

what would he say if i told him

that 700 years later

>

some guy speaking a language he didn’t know

living on a continent he didn’t know about

>

would read him in translation

>

would find comfort in what he said

>

would turn his poems into something new

>>6. let be maybe be finale…

he’s gone

I will be too

>

and our words?

>

well, like Buddha

>

they are

laughing

###

—the Rag Tree

copyright, 2011

(photo: WikiCommons; Sebastian Ritter; CC 2.5)