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The Death of the Bard 7/25/2004 6:51:23 AM
Who Publishes poetry?
Well gentle readers, I have been doing some research on Poetry readership in general. I have discoverd thay unless i come up with a Guarrantee, as in around $5000 in cash, no mainstream publisher in Australia will publish Poetry. Of course if I were already famous, ( Like that word, "Already"), they would publish my shopping list, and pay ME for it.
I have also found out that of the grants handed out by the Arts Council for publishing, less than 14% of the total go to publishing poetry. Mind you they did hand out $25000 to a group of teenagers to release a song that nobody wants to listen to due to it's porno content. The highest sales for any one Australian Poetry Book published in the last four years, has been 750, with the average at around 300 per title. Most sales being to Schools, Universitys and Academics who spend their time trying to figure out what the Author was really saying.
Who reads Poetry? It would seem that only Poets read Poetry. Reading a couple of papers on the subject has convinced me that, in todays society, writing poetry for Publication is a no win situation. The time of the Bard is over. The Story Teller, who wrote great sagas' about the world they lived in, the heroes of their time, or simple verse for the pleasure of the masses, has become a thing of the past. We have been superceded by the mass media POP star. The ones who are under 20, under the influence of substances, and under someones wife or , who perform strange verse that is filled with invectives, obsenity, and hate, and are virtually naked. have taken over. I feel that with some of the female performers, if they were'nt naked or semi naked no one would buy their CDs. Hmmm...I wonder if I should try that. Nah! it would only scare them off.
In stating the above, i must admit that some of the Lyrics are rather clever, and rather reluctantly admit that it is a legitimate form of performing poetry.
Think I will go to bed and meditate on the subject. Not feeling to bright at the moment, probably too much Schnapps.
