EDIFICATION

Behold: poetry flyer. You ask: why? The question really: why not? Poetry touches us all. Why should its chirographic affiliate thud on your doorstep branded with the bulk-rate tattoo of the postal service like a side of beef? Far be it from us to find faults with the postal service (or fault lines in beef); nor do we claim to have beef with the postal service, or have mailed beef through the postal service, or have mailed a literary journal to anyone. Not because we do not read literary journals - we love them, in fact - but only because we enjoy handing them to others in person, and smiling, and walking away. We just did this yesterday. Or if not then, then a few days before yesterday. We handed it off like a football and kept walking, empty-handed, down the sidewalk. We wondered: why, in this era in which desktop publishing has democratized the literary landscape, the horizon between our most spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling - poetry - and its medium - the book - still greet each other like nephew and great-uncle? And why should you, poet, squirm as that old man reaches across his oak desk to shake your hand? Publishing a book is no longer like inheriting a great tradition, or even a plastics factory. Saying there's money in poetry is like saying evolution does not exist. Write a poem? You might as well be inheriting the wind.

Yet, from behind our editorial gates, we like to pretend we are signing over exclusive rights to something ineffable. Our prose feels trickled-down from a lawyer: "send all submissions and queries to this address." Or, "first North American serial rights required." Or, "payment will be..." and here I interrupt: how much? Now the earth shudders, a whirlwind appears, and a voice booms down from somewhere above: TWENTY DOLLARS A POEM.

Twenty dollars! I really am inheriting the wind. And so we say, to those who would like to continue to inherit the wind: again: behold: poetry flyer.

One could say: fiction requires money. Pages and pages and pages to print. It hits your doorstep with a thud, and the man who sent it pivots on his heel and is gone, lugging his sack down the sidewalk. It is not given; it is delivered. But a poem is air, incandescence. It flutters through the air, even when it lands heavily. Why should it not be launched to you on wings of air by some interested (and perhaps interesting) person, instead of having it delivered by some dour man in blue who dreams of machine guns at night in his domicile? Not as if there's anything wrong with machine guns. Used properly, they can render a great service to the cause of public order and decency. But we have said too much.

Poetry flyer will be published and distributed free, whenever we feel like it. Submit what you can. We will not require rights of any kind; we will not pay you anything.

If you are interested in setting up your own poetry flyer, wherever you are, we can help. Interested? Send us an email.