It is complicated for me. They journals who charge $3 pay ~$2+ for the service. Many have a policy of a free reading period or free to historically marginalized folks. No curator is making money off the $3 charge. IN addition, the barrier to entry was there for many back in the day when a copy of Poets and Writers was necessary, a 50¢ stamp and an envelope stuffed with printed material and a trip to the post office required.
That said, you point about $3 adding up is well taken for sure. Because I have the means I most always pay an extra fee if there is that option to give curators room to offer more free subs.
As the famous motto of the Mayflower Coffee Shops would pen on their walls: As you go through life, let this be your goal; keep your eye upon the donut, not upo the hole. Poetry fees are the hole. Whether what you write is worth publishing is the donut.The issue is not fees/no fees; the issue is that the business model of too many journals is to not treat the journal as a BUSINESS but more like a project or hobby that brings in a little latte money. If journal publishers sought both traditional and untraditional means of support for their business, we'd see some wonderful changes. Support can be generated from (1) advertisements (2) grants and similar funding (3) sponsorships of related businesses (4) patrons. Look at pw.org's Poets & Writers Magazine as an excellent business model. The opportunity for publication has outstripped the quality of the work published. Yes, anyone can write, and it seems, almost anyone can be published. This is not good news. The amount of published crap is so huge that, yes, AI written copy often makes the cut because a well-designed software can produce something better than so many people who are not taking the time to learn the craft necessary. One solution is to ask yourself is this poem worthy? Is it the best I can do? Form a group of first readers and ask them if your works connect. Do they want to read more? That will enable you to understand if you should publish at all and, if so, to discover who should be reading your work. Find ways to reach more of these potential readers, and write for them in any way you can (vlog, blog, newsletter, Substack, social media groups, even clubs and organizations of like minded people eager to read you.) If you can charge for subscriptions, yeah; if not, you're still building an audience for future promotion of your work. But, first, learn to write poetry worth reading.
Diana, I'm sure there are others more qualified than myself to write about potential business models for literary journals. The argument is ancillary to the one I was attempting to make, however. In any case, I wouldn't want anyone to think I discourage any poet from sending their work out for consideration. Often rejection is a a catalyst to revision, and over time one gets a feel for what work is 'ready' - though I admit after many years at this even I don't always 'know'. I'd assume, for argument's sake, that most poets who send work out think it's 'worth reading' (barring plagiarists and trolls), and aren't going out of their way to waste readers' time. We need to make sure the playing field is level, and open to all who wish to participate with honest intention.
Are other editors seeing a lot of AI poetry submissions? I was a reader on substantially every packet submitted to Variant in 2024, and less than 1% seemed suspicious to me. We aren’t, like, the Paris Review, but we have free submissions and pay $10 a poem.
Distressingly, it’s not terribly difficult to prompt the latest assistants in such a way that I, at least, would be unable to tell AI poetry from bad amateur poetry.
Despite AI poetry being at the intersection of my profession and (the current focus of) my art, I have yet to see anything that would waste much of my time. (And from what I remember of how Tim does initial reads, maybe not much of their time, either.) When AI can spit out poetry that’s pretty good but not great? I don’t know.
I’ve longed in general for better ways to signal and be signaled that time is being wasted. All there is, really, is disciplined use of graded form declines; from the author side, this involves reading the tea leaves on Duotrope and Rejection Wiki—our host’s favorite—and from the editor side, I don’t know if it accomplishes much at all.
I fed a few of my poems into an AI and then asked the AI to write a poem in the manner of my poems. The results were alarming. I shared them with Tim Green and Katie Dozier at Rattle who are both familiar with my work and, while they could tell which was AI and which was mine, they said that the AI poetry would might have made it through the first screen out of the slush pile.
Something I thought of... that I'm reluctant to even share given someone might do this... but I thought of it so someone else inevitably will, too, is that they could feed a very good poem already published (older famous poetry or popular contemporary poetry) into an LLM and tweak the results to "make it new".
The recent "Kucera" plagiarism issues were highly destructive and upsetting. This would be a next level problem that would be extremely difficult to approach.
What's sad is that I have a feeling it will create a situation where the ecosystem will require a a heightened level of trust. Gatekeeping (as a concept) is already under so much scrutiny... but it will become that much more important as we navigate these types of scenarios. I worry, as a gatekeeper, about the future possibility of struggling to trust new writers who I have not yet established some form of relationship with... Of course, anyone can choose to do wrong... but inevitably we will be more suspicious of those that are "strangers". In this dark vision, the proving grounds for new writers become highly challenging and met with a great deal of suspicion.
Excellent point, Mark. As I wrote, " Trust is the gold standard of our ecosystem." (Perhaps this is true in a wider sense as well.) Plagiarism has always been an issue, and no reader or editor has the ability to recognize any and every attempt at plagiarism, or in this case 'enhanced plagiarism' ('enhanced' is a nice weaselly word, innit?) using AI hacks (let's call it what it is). Maybe this will make it harder to 'break in', as readers grow more and more suspicious. Eventually, I think, (as with 'Kucera') piracy will be found out. But the nature of piracy is that it's a game of Whack-a-Mole, and it keeps popping up under a different guise. "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty," someone once wrote.
Thanks for weighing in, Dick. I was hoping you would share this, here. I appreciated what you said on The Poetry Space_ about the difficult work that will be created for curators.
I just saw a new UK journal has an interesting submissions filter: for every poem submitted you must submit a book review with it. https://www.thelittlereview.co.uk/submit
Yeah, I saw this too. Not this that is directly correlated, however, it struck me as interesting that Simon & Schuster's flagship imprint is taking a step away from using blurbs.
I'm wondering if we're going to start seeing a range of small experimental industry-wide changes across the literary community landscape.
That sounds like a good idea to me, Mark. As much as I value the blurbs I've garnered for my books, I think the practice is essentially moot and based on principles of marketing, which ruin most things.
It is complicated for me. They journals who charge $3 pay ~$2+ for the service. Many have a policy of a free reading period or free to historically marginalized folks. No curator is making money off the $3 charge. IN addition, the barrier to entry was there for many back in the day when a copy of Poets and Writers was necessary, a 50¢ stamp and an envelope stuffed with printed material and a trip to the post office required.
That said, you point about $3 adding up is well taken for sure. Because I have the means I most always pay an extra fee if there is that option to give curators room to offer more free subs.
Well said!
As the famous motto of the Mayflower Coffee Shops would pen on their walls: As you go through life, let this be your goal; keep your eye upon the donut, not upo the hole. Poetry fees are the hole. Whether what you write is worth publishing is the donut.The issue is not fees/no fees; the issue is that the business model of too many journals is to not treat the journal as a BUSINESS but more like a project or hobby that brings in a little latte money. If journal publishers sought both traditional and untraditional means of support for their business, we'd see some wonderful changes. Support can be generated from (1) advertisements (2) grants and similar funding (3) sponsorships of related businesses (4) patrons. Look at pw.org's Poets & Writers Magazine as an excellent business model. The opportunity for publication has outstripped the quality of the work published. Yes, anyone can write, and it seems, almost anyone can be published. This is not good news. The amount of published crap is so huge that, yes, AI written copy often makes the cut because a well-designed software can produce something better than so many people who are not taking the time to learn the craft necessary. One solution is to ask yourself is this poem worthy? Is it the best I can do? Form a group of first readers and ask them if your works connect. Do they want to read more? That will enable you to understand if you should publish at all and, if so, to discover who should be reading your work. Find ways to reach more of these potential readers, and write for them in any way you can (vlog, blog, newsletter, Substack, social media groups, even clubs and organizations of like minded people eager to read you.) If you can charge for subscriptions, yeah; if not, you're still building an audience for future promotion of your work. But, first, learn to write poetry worth reading.
Diana, I'm sure there are others more qualified than myself to write about potential business models for literary journals. The argument is ancillary to the one I was attempting to make, however. In any case, I wouldn't want anyone to think I discourage any poet from sending their work out for consideration. Often rejection is a a catalyst to revision, and over time one gets a feel for what work is 'ready' - though I admit after many years at this even I don't always 'know'. I'd assume, for argument's sake, that most poets who send work out think it's 'worth reading' (barring plagiarists and trolls), and aren't going out of their way to waste readers' time. We need to make sure the playing field is level, and open to all who wish to participate with honest intention.
Are other editors seeing a lot of AI poetry submissions? I was a reader on substantially every packet submitted to Variant in 2024, and less than 1% seemed suspicious to me. We aren’t, like, the Paris Review, but we have free submissions and pay $10 a poem.
Distressingly, it’s not terribly difficult to prompt the latest assistants in such a way that I, at least, would be unable to tell AI poetry from bad amateur poetry.
As long as it's indistinguishable from bad amateur poetry it will be mostly a time-waster. When it's able to pass as serious work, how will we react?
Despite AI poetry being at the intersection of my profession and (the current focus of) my art, I have yet to see anything that would waste much of my time. (And from what I remember of how Tim does initial reads, maybe not much of their time, either.) When AI can spit out poetry that’s pretty good but not great? I don’t know.
I’ve longed in general for better ways to signal and be signaled that time is being wasted. All there is, really, is disciplined use of graded form declines; from the author side, this involves reading the tea leaves on Duotrope and Rejection Wiki—our host’s favorite—and from the editor side, I don’t know if it accomplishes much at all.
Tim & Katie did a good job addressing AI concerns in a recent episode of The Poetry Space_
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-85-artificial-intelligence/id1675796320?i=1000679500803
The issue is, in part, that it has the potential to become both a challenge and a massive headache for curators like myself.
I fed a few of my poems into an AI and then asked the AI to write a poem in the manner of my poems. The results were alarming. I shared them with Tim Green and Katie Dozier at Rattle who are both familiar with my work and, while they could tell which was AI and which was mine, they said that the AI poetry would might have made it through the first screen out of the slush pile.
Something I thought of... that I'm reluctant to even share given someone might do this... but I thought of it so someone else inevitably will, too, is that they could feed a very good poem already published (older famous poetry or popular contemporary poetry) into an LLM and tweak the results to "make it new".
The recent "Kucera" plagiarism issues were highly destructive and upsetting. This would be a next level problem that would be extremely difficult to approach.
What's sad is that I have a feeling it will create a situation where the ecosystem will require a a heightened level of trust. Gatekeeping (as a concept) is already under so much scrutiny... but it will become that much more important as we navigate these types of scenarios. I worry, as a gatekeeper, about the future possibility of struggling to trust new writers who I have not yet established some form of relationship with... Of course, anyone can choose to do wrong... but inevitably we will be more suspicious of those that are "strangers". In this dark vision, the proving grounds for new writers become highly challenging and met with a great deal of suspicion.
Thoughts on this?
Excellent point, Mark. As I wrote, " Trust is the gold standard of our ecosystem." (Perhaps this is true in a wider sense as well.) Plagiarism has always been an issue, and no reader or editor has the ability to recognize any and every attempt at plagiarism, or in this case 'enhanced plagiarism' ('enhanced' is a nice weaselly word, innit?) using AI hacks (let's call it what it is). Maybe this will make it harder to 'break in', as readers grow more and more suspicious. Eventually, I think, (as with 'Kucera') piracy will be found out. But the nature of piracy is that it's a game of Whack-a-Mole, and it keeps popping up under a different guise. "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty," someone once wrote.
That's extremely worrying, Dick.
Thanks for weighing in, Dick. I was hoping you would share this, here. I appreciated what you said on The Poetry Space_ about the difficult work that will be created for curators.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-85-artificial-intelligence/id1675796320?i=1000679500803
I just saw a new UK journal has an interesting submissions filter: for every poem submitted you must submit a book review with it. https://www.thelittlereview.co.uk/submit
Yeah, I saw this too. Not this that is directly correlated, however, it struck me as interesting that Simon & Schuster's flagship imprint is taking a step away from using blurbs.
I'm wondering if we're going to start seeing a range of small experimental industry-wide changes across the literary community landscape.
https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/96957-why-simon-schuster-s-flagship-imprint-won-t-require-blurbs-anymore.html
That sounds like a good idea to me, Mark. As much as I value the blurbs I've garnered for my books, I think the practice is essentially moot and based on principles of marketing, which ruin most things.