Question from a young poet?

Question

I set my goal of poems to reach before even looking to get published at 500.

It looks like I will hit that mark before the end of the year.

However, I'm not sure if I should get published. Friends and acquantinces all say that I am an amazing poet (I will put a sample poem in additional information soon) but I am really not sure at this point.

I write poetry to express myself and I'm not sure if I want the expression part to possibly be tainted by getting published.

I am very open to criticism and not too clingy to having every word in a poem stay the same. I am not afraid of the editing process.

Any advice on getting published along with whether or not I should try to get published is fully welcome.

Also, should I send all 500 (Not expecting them to all get in, but to give the publisher choices, expectign about 100 to be in the book) or should I just try to find my best work (which is not an easy thing to do)!

Thanks in advance.

Don’t Let Go

Hold on tight,
don’t let go.
You are bleeding,
don’t let it show.
You’ve been hurt,
I’ve been healed,
so don’t run away.
Don’t be scared,
you won’t be scarred,
I have a heart,
you won’t leave with a wound.
Don’t’ give up,
on love itself,
too wonderful,
to ever lose.
Don’t look the other way,
when love passes by,
run up,
and embrace,
kiss it on the heart.
Don’t pretend,
you can’t anymore,
you are a lover,
don’t let go.

Trust me, they do not all sound the same. This isn't something that I just started doing this year, I have been working on it for a long time with a lot of diverse poems.

Answer 1

Quality, not quantity is what will get you published. You sound very confident. That is good because poetry is not an easy art to sustain. And it is wise that you are not afraid of criticism. Art hurts because it is meant to hurt. It is called growing as a person. To do that, we have to listen, deeply. Learn, profoundly. And share, openly. I applaud your efforts and hope you will continue this quest.

Answer 2

Before you start thinking about publishing a whole book of poetry, go to http://www.duotrope.com and find poetry markets that will publish your work in their magazines, either online or in print. You need to get your name out there and have clips (publishing credits) ready before you approach a publisher about doing a book. Poetry books are not easy to sell and they won't take a chance on an unknown because they'll lose money.

If you go the self-publishing route, consider that it will take a lot of marketing to sell your work, which also means putting it out there in the public view somehow to convince people it's worth reading.

Stay away from poetry.com, whatever you do. It's a scam to get you to buy their anthologies. Try writing.com and put a few in a portfolio to show and get reviews. Remember that if you display your work online, some publishers (magazine and otherwise) will consider it already published. That is fine with some, and not fine with others. Always be truthful.

Develop a thick skin. There will always be critics, whether or not they have the judgment to be a critic.

Good luck!

Answer 3

I think that its great that you want to take your art to the next level by having your work published. I am a poet myself and I am also unpublished. The first I will tell you is not to set quotos for yourself. Remember quality over quanity. Dont be scared of the editing process. Publishers of poetry are looking for specific things from a poet and either you have it or you dont. Its rare that they want to change what you've done. Since poetry is art its very unlikely that a publisher would try and tell you what "works better'. Its not like writing fiction or anything. Poetry is personal. My advice to you would be to look through your work and decide what pieces are the best in YOUR opinion. Out of those 500 poems set aside the best and compile your own 'book' and then take samples from that 'book' and send to the publisher. You should also familiarize yourself with publisher of poetry. find out what they want. Read books that have published by some of their authors and see if you would fit in. Do your resarch. There are also magazines and other periodicals that publish poetry. one website that I have poetry on is www.literatenubian.org
There other websites to that have legitimate contest. Dont chnage your style of writing or what you write about. Poetry is your baby, dont just give it to anyone. protect it and be careful with it. Break a lead!!

Answer 4

First, get all of them copyrighted. Then send your best ones out to different magazines. I reccommend a book called The Writer's Market for addresses and information about the magazines. They put one edition of this book out every year, and it tells you all of the places where you can submit your work.

Be prepared for a lot of rejection at first. You may send all 500 out and just get slips of paper back saying that they're not interested. This happens to even the best poets. These people see hundreds of poems a day, so you may have to work at this awhile before you get published at all. Just keep sending them out. Once one place rejects you, send it to another place, and so on.

Your work won't get tainted by the editing process. Most major magazines would make very few changes to your poetry if they actually feel it is worth publishing in the first place.

Answer 5

You can do what you want. Personally, I'm not into poetry. But, as a writer, I know people that write only because they want to, not because they want to publish what they write. You can be one of those people. Who cares about pleasing others when writing poetry pleases you?

But, if you want to publish and are unsure of yourself, try taking a Def Jam approach. Present your poetry to a live audience and see how they like it, understand it, feel it.

Answer 6

definite, I do believe that youthful poets ought to pay interest to what the older poets say. even with each thing, the position did the paintings come from, absolutely no longer this century. I do believe, notwithstanding, that we are looking our some time previous to poetry, and hence we ought to continually honestly pay interest to those who got here in the previous us. thanks for this reminder and for helping me study. I continually pay interest to what you assert.

Answer 7

it's refreshing to see
proper english spelling along the way :)
very nice.
but don't let anyone try to push you and your expression--writing--into anything. don't let them change EVERYTHING. not being clingy is good. but let them change too much and it won't be yours. and look at me--telling you what to do!
ok.
know what's yours and that's what you'll keep.
peace.

Answer 8

start with a goal a little more reasonable to do............becusae you would wanna rush on something like this coz they would all sound the sam *from experience*