Strong Verse updated and serial query

There's a new poem up on Strong Verse (finally!). There's also a nice queue of work coming, so check it 2x a week or so for updates. For those of you submitting poems, I'll try to have responses for you by October or so.

So the serial poetry thing...

It's a given that if I publish a book of poetry, it won't sell. I think that narrative books of poetry sell better, but since Scholastic isn't returning my calls, the whole popular book thing looks dire, at best. We know this is true of American poetry in general though performance poetry seems to be able to pack in the folks.

So what to do?

I think that a partial solution may be found in a model that worked like the Dickens for Dickens. Serial publishing. Now, I can't think of any print rags that would actually touch a serial narrative poem (they rarely do serial novels any more) but I can think of (and create, honestly) online publications that would. Since I'm not vying for tenure, I'm not terribly concerned with "the shame" of publishing online. I mean, I like print and all -- books smell and feel great -- but since more people read poetry blogs than read print versions of poetry magazines (I mean, seriously, most quarterlies [even the "biggies"] have a circulation of 500 or so -- and this obscure little blog gets 300-500 unique hits a month) I have an inkling that online is the way to go (now making money, that's a question for later).

So what do you think? Who out there reads online poetry magazines? Would you come back to one weekly or twice a week if you knew a new section of a narrative poem would be up there? How long would you like the section to be?

Start the comments!