Why Poets & Writers? I've never understood the title of that magazine. After all, all poets are writers. It would be like saying, "painters and artists," "pianists and musicians," "shirts and clothes."
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I get this a lot in academia: "narrowly focussed on poetry." "That's all you do, poetry?" As though poetry weren't infinite! "You mean you only study physics? You don't do a little biology on the side?" I should be more interdisciplinary, I guess. It's not as though I lack extracurricular interests, but I am too modest to claim that I actually master another whole "discipline."
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The Lawrence, KS, issue of Black Spring is here. It's got Kenneth Irby, Judith Roitman, Jim McCrary, Dale Smith, John Mortiz, Lee Chapman. Robert Grenier (and others) writing on Irby. Monica Peck, Marybeth Larkin, Jonathan Mayhew, Steve Tills, and a few others. If you want your own copy I'd suggest moseying over to Black Spring and finding Steve's email there. I'm sure he'd sell you a copy for $7. There's a lot of Lawrence literary history I don't know myself. I've only lived there 9 years and so I'm definitely the new kid on the block.
On the "poets and writers" issue....
ResponderEliminarThis came up in my MFA program, when our softball team made T shirts. On the front of each shirt for the poetry team it said, "poets" but for the fiction writers it was too long to write "fiction writers". So the two teams became "poets" and "fiction" as though they were actually fiction. I think this might be behind the title of the magazine.... maybe a marketing plan suggested that a title which spoke to people directly (as in, "Hey you! Poet! Pick up this magazine. It has your name on it) was a good idea....
Maybe we should call them Fictioneers?