Books and publishing are doing well in these hard economic times. Poetry is doing well online. And free poetry, widely available through online literary journals and e-book publishers, offers a way to help those who want to, or perhaps have to, shave their book budgets.
Eric Pfanner, writing for the International Herald Tribune, examines how bookstores and the publishing industry have continued doing well, despite the world-wide recession (http://www.iht.com/
What about poetry? While the death knell for poetry has been rung many times, especially recently, poetry in particular also thrives today, despite the economy. The blossoming of online publishing, documented by the online site Poetry Archive, amongst others (see Stephen Adams, writing for the Daily Telegraph, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
And that’s just the Brits and Europeans. In the U.S., The Poetry Foundation has a similar site that allows viewers access to well-known and well-respected poets and poems (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/
And Web-based literary magazines know no geo-political boundaries. New ones spring up regularly (for example, see West Goes South http://www.westgoessouth.com/
While many companies, such as Barnes & Noble and Amazon, are trying to capitalize on e-books through sales of e-book readers and licensed books, other publishers are choosing a route more reminiscent of the indie music labels: they provide free publication to promote the poetry and poets. why vandalism? (no capitals) is a literary and arts journal that also publishes e-books (http://www.whyvandalism.com)
Dickel’s book demonstrates another principle of electronic publishing related to economics. His book contains photographs and digital art, most of it in full-color, the cost of publishing which would have driven the book’s price out of reach for consumers. This way, his artwork will be seen, his poetry will be read, and an audience will grow to know his work. Dickel says that he’d “like to make money, I don’t expect to do so as a poet. If people become familiar with my work, perhaps then they will also buy books from publishers—and be willing to pay the higher price to include art with the poetry.”
All you have to do is search on the word “poetry” in Google or Yahoo to see that, indeed, poetry is alive and well on the internet. And, largely, available for free. Poetry not only thrives in the online community, it thrives in ways that are affordable to any who have access to a computer and the internet.
