I shall plough my furrow
watching others burrow.
I shall sit with unclouded brow
Observing my fellow man worry about when and how.
I shall stand aloof
While others concern themselves with the truth.
The sun shines.
My lines
run on.
The time is long since gone
For expressing anything other than amusement
Or bemusement.
Who will smile in the end
When the axe descends?
I recently came across the following comment regarding the difficulties experienced by authors in getting published, (http://www.derekhaines.ch/justpublishing/i-need-a-publisher-no-you-dont/comment-page-1/#comment-1607). The commenter’s argument is neatly encapsulated by the following quote,
“Here’s the truth: 99.99% self publish because a traditional publisher rejected their manuscripts.
Why? Because they’re BAD!”
The above is a sweeping assertion. How can the commenter possibly know why so many authors find it difficult to get published via established (traditional) publishing companies? Where is the evidence to bolster his case? The plain truth is that he produces no facts in support of this highly contentious statement.
Established big name publishers will, on the whole publish what they believe will sell. What sells does not always correlate with what constitutes good writing. Of course there are many excellent works published by traditional publishers. However alongside the excellent exists what to my mind at least constitutes pap. The same applies to self-published authors – there is much good work out there which co-exists alongside the pap. I don’t believe that anyone can say, hand on heart that all that eminates from the traditional publishing stable is sweet scented hay while that coming from self-published authors is coated in horse dung. The sweet smelling hay and the manure are present in both stables and its nonsense to contend otherwise.
As a self-published author I do, of course have an axt to grind in that I believe my own work is far from being “bad”. I have also read many other self-published authors and poets who’s writing is far from being “bad”. I chose to self-publish due to wanting control over my own work. However I have a close friend in the off-line (real) world who expended countless hours in firing off letters to literary agents and publishers. He got nowhere. Hence he decided to self-publish using Createspace. It may be said that friendship clouds my judgement, however, having read a considerable portion of his manuscript I can assure my readers that it is far from being “bad”. It is, in my opinion extremely well written.
I have nothing whatsoever against traditional publishing. What I object to is lazy arguments not supported by evidence to the effect that the vast majority of material emanating from the self-publishing sector is bad, while traditional publishing overwhelmingly produces works of outstanding merit.
(Please Note; this post is in response to the comment linked to above. I agree with the post on which the commenter is commenting, it is the comment (not the post) with which I take issue).
A rhythmic motion
Like a ship upon the ocean
Your legs swung
But to me no joy brung.
You spoke in a foreign tongue.
No songs where sung.
You where young
Eighteen or twenty
Our hearts they where empty.
Yes you where young,
Your feet in heels swung .
I see them swinging still
I have had my fill
Of desert beds and swinging legs.
Love to me is dead.
The click of heels fades.
Silence crashes over him in waves.
Sadness contends with rage.
The turning of a new page
Or a man digging his own grave?
This is the place of passing delight,
Where souls are lost at dead of night.
This is the place of lust and sighs,
Where something in each man dies.
This is the place of creaking boards,
Where men unsheathe their mighty swords.
This is the place of guys called John,
Where satisfaction, once obtained, they are gone.
The platitudinous things people say,
The rain will wash them all away.
The rat race of a London day,
The rain will cleanse this all away.
Rain, nature’s balm to a troubled mind,
Within us inner peace we find.
A quiet place in which to dwell,
Aloof from this London hell.
The spider in his own web entangles,
Struggles exstatically, then slowly strangles.
The fly sucks the spider dry.
Smiling sweetly, to see him die.
Me reading my poem ‘The Gentleman Suitor to his Beloved’
As obscene as the breaking of glass,
Or the whisper of gas from the past.
“The jews are mean” you said.
Dead bodies in a camp.
The lamp shines on the food divine.
You drink more wine.
A train somewhere in the distance passes,
Somewhere glass smashes.
Sense loses itself in desire.
Man burns on passion’s pyre.
Love’s heat inflames,
Befuddles his brains.
Come the cooling rain,
He feels only shame,
Yet will return again,
To joy and pain
K Morris - Poet 