Gotta Be a Troglodyte If You Don’t Drive on the Electronic Superhighway
Written by John Erianne on June 6, 2008 – 2:34 pm -I am equal parts amused/frustrated/angry when I run across a writer and/or editor who refuses to happily embrace the electronic media or does so reluctantly as if it were some kind of voodoo.
Yesterday, I received my subscription copy of Free Lunch and was dismayed by Ron Offen’s editorial, “Poetry and the Web I”. In it, Offen explains why he doesn’t accept email submissions. Needless to say, Mr. Offen is free to run his operation anyway he sees fit. However, I would humbly suggest that his reasoning for not accepting email submissions is lame.
He cites his reasons in this editorial: staff problems (he doesn’t have one), he doesn’t like to read poems on the screen (and feel that poetry and computers are “incompatible”), and feels the cost of printing out emails in hard copy would be prohibitive.
Perhaps it’s because I’ve always respected Mr. Offen as an editor that his attitude rubs me the wrong way. See, I’ve long been a proponent of online media and electronic submissions, etc. One of my biggest pet peeves since I first joined the online community is my many encounters with troglodytes who spurn the new media and new methods of doing things. When noted editors like Offen espouse such attitudes and pass it off as a kind of wisdom, it makes it harder for editors like myself to convince writers and editors otherwise.
But let’s examine Mr. Offen’s reasons, shall we?
Staff. Guess what? I don’t have a staff either (as I’ve mentioned many times). And I wear more hats at Asterius Press than Mr. Offen does. I can tell you honestly that emailed submissions is a time-saver — not an impediment. I have a system that works quite well. Every submission (at least the ones with the appropriate subject line) is automatically sent to a special folder as it arrives to my inbox. An auto-responder informing the writers that their submission has been received soon after. I read and evaluate the submissions much the same as print submissions (honestly, it’s not like there’s some special criteria for emailed submissions — a good poem is a good poem and a bad one is still a bad one). Electronic submissions are especially convenient because I don’t have to transcribe them or scan them. I just cut and paste them into my word-processing or publishing program without the extra fuss required for hard-copy submissions. And if I have a particularly long submission that requires me to read a hard copy, it’s not much trouble to print it out — that’s what printers are for and, unless you are printing out hundreds of copies of said poem, the cost is negligible.
Reading submissions onscreen is a problem? Listen. Unless you are still using a fucking Gutenburg press, the work will end-up on a computer screen and will have to be read by someone anyway, so what’s the big deal about reading on the screen? Granted, spending too much time reading will mess with with your eyes, but so can reading printed copy over long stretches of time. There is nothing in the rule book that says you can’t take a break once in awhile. You know — get up, take a walk, eat a sandwich, crank one out, etc.
Perhaps Mr. Offen’s attitude is to be expected — after all, he’s of a different generation than editors like me. He is, as he admits, a “Luddite”. Unfortunately, he wears this badge with a certain amount of pride, and that’s what I find so frustrating. Poets are supposed to be more progressive — not less so. Poets are the visionaries who inspire. Mr. Offen says that he believes poetry and the electronic medium are incompatible. I’d say the opposite is true — that his attitude towards the electronic medium is incompatible with poetry. In fact, I see a day when I, too, will only accept emailed submissions.
