(this is the same message presently on the poetz front page, repeated here for subscribers on RSS and Facebook)

hello poetz!

long time no hear, i know, i know. it’s been busy out lately, as i’m sure you’ve noticed, even if you’re just #OccupyingYourLife. i hope that you’re doing some other #Occupying as well.

here is some news: the NYC poetry calendar is officially dead (in case you haven’t noticed), and is going offline completely as of 12/31/11.

it’s been a good long run, but i believe the calendar has served its purpose, which originally was to replace the free printed NYC poetry calendar that stopped coming out in 1999. now, with so many other online tools available to so many, this calendar isn’t comprehensive enough to be useful — and making it totally comprehensive would be, at this point, something close to a fulltime job.

while i’ve gotten a lot of joy and made some wonderful connections over the last decade+ of managing this calendar, i’m honestly sick to death of updating it at this point, and no one with the time, energy & computer chops to do the job as it should be done has appeared. so, rather than leaving it online but stale (which makes people very very unhappy, if they show up at a series that no longer is running! and then they send me many very very unhappy emails! and then *i* am very very unappy!) i’m going to take it down on new year’s eve and send you all a Happy 2012 message instead.

this will not affect the other calendars still operating out of poetz, though i don’t plan to add any new ones. and, as the long-time curators of the other calendars — like bob in hudson valley and barb on long island — decide to hang up their event-curation spurs, those calendars will also go dark.

i stopped publishing poetry on this site a while ago, and now do whatever online writing i feel like doing at Get Angry With Me, some vblogging on my youtube channel, some music on reverbnation.

come visit me there, i’d love to see you!

jaxx

(oh — and if you live in new york state, please don’t forget to sign the petition to REMOVE mike bloomberg from office! and his “private army” with him! thanks!)

this was announced on the poetz home page, but i’m not sure that many of you noticed it there --

A BIG upgrade has just come to the NYC poetry calendar: you can now automatically add events to your own schedule using the iCal link. It’s gone live as of right now — go ahead and try it! (if it works well in NYC, it’ll be added the other calendars — just gotta test the load on the mail server first).

Next thing we’re testing is an auto-notify feature that will email all events, or events from a selected category, to you automatically. Stay tuned for updates on that one.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xWR1C1jGcQ

Choosing poems in advance, like a rock band writing out a setlist, gives you one less thing to worry about when it’s time to stand and deliver. Having said that, of course your choices are subject to change at any time, and depending on the tone of the audience, the events of the day or some aspect of the venue (i.e., their sound system is down, it’s pouring rain on the tin roof, you’ll have to shout rather than read) you may make changes — or scrap the list altogether — right on the spot. Still, even if you alter or ignore it, creating the list gives you a chance to think about your work in relation to this particular venue, and make some decisions.

Questions to consider when developing your set:

• is this audience likely to be familiar with my work? have they heard me read before?
• does the venue have a good sound system? is the room quiet?
• is this a “clubhouse” type of a venue?if so, what is the nature of the club?
• is this a PG-audience or is it a PG-venue?
• what product(s)  will I have on hand to sell?
• and the ever-critical “how much time do i have?”

The answers will help you  make effective poem choices. For one, if it’s a brand-new audience, maybe in a city you’ve never visited before, then a greatest-hits type of reading is the way to go — strut your best stuff, the pieces that you know well and that commonly get a good response, and just go for it. But don’t forget to include some work from any products that you plan to pimp that night — and introduce the piece that way during the show. “This one is from my new book, YGZYGY, that you see on the back table there.” Don’t mention the price, though, not in the middle of your set. Tacky.

The sound system is an important consideration if you have some very quiet poems, a whispered line or two, a lot of modulation in tone. These just won’t work if you’re competing with a goddamn cappuccino maker, or if the room is huge and mykless (I just discovered this new spelling of “myk” — which neatly avoids the annoying mic/mike question — and I am stealing it to use until the end of time).

Clubhouse readings. Ah, either great fun or great potentials for effups. Don’t trot out your most aggressively angry liberal political pieces for the Elk’s Club, for example — unless your intention is to spark a political maelstrom. (Nothing wrong with that, of course! Just don’t do it by accident.) And that “Fuck Jesus Anyway” poem you wrote probably isn’t going to go over well from the pulpit in St. Mark’s Church on New Year’s Day, and I don’t care how good it is nor how liberal the poetry marathon audience tends to be.

PG speaks for itself — and it’s worth noting that large book chains frown on swearwords. A few years back one of them, I think Borders, actually threw the featured poet out of the store in the middle of his reading after he dropped an f-bomb. I know it’s ridiculous, but forewarned is forearmed. If this sort of thing pisses you off, consider writing a very polite, curseless poem condemning the narrow-minded booksellers of the realm to read in stores that censor their poets.

If you’re in a generally depressed mood, it’s tempting to read all your most depressing poems, but that’s not a good strategy. No, you don’t have to fake happy, but nobody wants to be made miserable. Mix it up.

Mix it up? You mean, pay attention to the order?

Exactly. More on that in Part 4 of this series.

the comments section of a call for submissions or contest deadline isn’t intended to be used for self-publishing.

yet several people have done exactly that, posting an entire poem as a comment in one of the Calls for Submission notes, presumably in hopes that anyone reading the contest guidelines will also take the time to read their poem.

i delete them from the site on sight. anything unrelated to piece on which it appears, whatever it may be, isn’t a comment and doesn’t belong there.

this may seem rigid. but i know what’s likely to happen without boundaries: a facebook-style thread of poems and responses to those poems, and responses to the responses.

there’s also the possibility of people using the comments in this manner so that they can then say they were “published” on poetz.com. kinda murky.

if you think this sucks, feel free to leave a comment.

since poetz was rebuilt, i’ve been gathering links from useful, quality sites for writers in order to list them as a resource here.

i thought this would be a simple process, but it isn’t. there’s a lot more chaff than wheat out there, and many of the sites with good information are so riddled with ads and popups and crap that i wouldn’t recommend them to anyone, simply because of the annoyance factor.

what sites do you consider indispensible? what are your go-to places? any site listed in the comments to this post will be considered for inclusion. (no personal poetry sites, though, please — that’s a horse of a different color.)

recently, i stumbled across the writer’s digest newsletter, “writing tip of the day” and subscribed. not only is it disappointing, it’s downright insulting, as they use this so-called newsletter simply as a traffic engine for their advertisers.

in fact, the whole site is a huge disappointment. i don’t know who their target market is, but it’s not most writers that i know — WD has priced themselves off the map.

for example:

• a 75-minute live webinar on self-publishing is $79
• one “on-demand” webinar is $29 — and it’s nothing but a slideshow
• another is $99, and it’s a podcast! they expect you to buy an mp3 for a hundred bucks!
• a 12-week online workshop is (are you sitting down?) $599

across the board, everything was outrageously priced, excepting their clearance books and a magazine subscription. it is, quite simply, wrong (and shortsighted) to charge a small fortune for online resources. yes, there’s an expense associated with creating the material and yes, of course we should — we want to! — pay for them. pay, not be made fools of.

such resources have a very long shelf-life. a podcast on self-publishing, or book promotion; a slideshow on how to attract an agent — you can (and they likely do) sell the exact same material for many years without  having to do an update. savvy online retailers who care about their customers price such things quite low and go for volume, or give one or two away for free to demonstrate their value and incent potential customers to make a purchase. what those sites receive, in addition to the revenue, is goodwill and repeat customers.

i didn’t find a single instance of that kind of goodwill anywhere on the writer’s digest site, where we’re just their cash cow. they couldn’t even get it right with a simple tip-a-day newsletter, and created an ad machine around it that’s so annoying it’s a small job to decipher what their tip of the day even IS.

here’s my tip-of-the-day: don’t waste your time with writer’s digest. they’re not the only game in town.

You know, despite all the groveling done by iWriteIt when a very strong warning against entering their contest was published on this site, despite the amendments they made to their heinous you-wrote-it-we-own-it terms, their operation still did not sit right with me. And I should have gone with my gut on this one, and let those losers call me bad names or throw whatever other kind of hissy fit scammers throw when someone refuses to make nice when they roll over and show their furry bellies.

Sigh.

Last week, Michael Bussa left this comment on the site:

Jackie,

I would like to respond to the messages between you and the Conry’s. In regard to the iwriteit.com website, I was advised by John Conry, that I was one of the first 100 authors to post my work, thereby winning $100. I waited to hear from Mr. Conry and after two weeks, I inquired about the payment, and was told that there would be a delay, since many have asked for the money in checks, rather than paypal. While I don’t know why that would have any bearing on me, I accepted his reply that the money would be transferred to paypal during the first week of July. That time has now come and gone and still no payment. Mr. Conry does not repsond to my email inquiries any longer. If they can’t even afford to pay me the $100, how will they put out 30k?

I would not recommend doing business with them. I have any supporting emails, which I would be glad to provide you as proof of their correspondance. Mr. Conry is also a lawyer and this is rather shameful behavior for someone in his position.

Absolutely yes, I wanted to see the emails. The exchange is below.

So not only am I retracting the original retraction and recommending that you not enter their contest, I’m taking it a step further:

I strongly suggest that writers do not engage in ANY transactions with iWriteIt.

Don’t post ANYTHING on their site, don’t use them for promotion.

Avoid this kind of dishonesty like the plague.

And BRAVO to you, Michael, for not just letting it slide.

Please keep us posted.

scammers!

This could be a two-word post: Just Don’t.

Unless the host or venue has some sort of a formal process for requesting featured readings. In that case, follow their guidelines and cross your fingers.

It’s perfectly fine to let the host know (preferably over email) that you’d be available to feature if asked, providing contact info and links to some of your past performances. But leave it at that. Don’t follow up and don’t take it personally if you don’t get the gig. Just as you wouldn’t take it personally (right?) if your work isn’t accepted by a particular journal.

Two “strategies” that are sometimes employed by hopeful features strike me as particularly repugnant:

• book the host at your own series expecting quid pro quo
• corner the host after they’ve read at another series, gush over their performance, then ask them for a feature

A weekly reading has, at most, 52 feature slots for the year — usually less, depending on when the holidays fall. Here’s a current example:

Son of Pony has 49 readings this year, split between two hosts. Around 25 shows for each to book. Some nights are set aside for events such as the annual DaDa Festival, and Pride Night in June. Others are reserved for out-of-town or touring poets who will only be in NYC on certain dates. How many slots are left after all special considerations are taken into account? Somewhere between 15-20. For the year.

Yet it’s not unusual to get a half dozen requests for features in a single evening; and some of the poets who ask practically stand there with their calendar open, tapping their feet and frowning. Other poets ask again …. and again. The word badgering comes to mind. And who wants to book a badger?

The best reply I’ve ever heard a host make to the uninvited question “How do I get a feature here?” was quite succinct: “You wait to be asked.”

Good writers, with good material, a strong stage presence and a little bit of promotional know-how never ask for features. They don’t have to — hosts are looking for poets like these. The best way to get featured readings is to be excellent at what you do. Focus on developing your skills as a writer and a performer. Maybe cheerfully do some service of your own for the poetry community. Trust me, the features will come.

I am still catching my breath a week after launching the new Poetz, and what a week it’s been! Apart from all the controversy about that contest, I’ve also gotten a lot of great feedback — not just kudos (of which there were many, and I thank you!) but also about some necessary improvements.

Here’s a good example: who is the “I” that’s writing this post? Right now, you only know if you know — the site doesn’t tell you, though it should. Create an “About” page, check… Meanwhile, I’m Jackie Sheeler and Poetz is the same one-woman operation it’s been since day one. Deliberately didn’t use my name in the “Second Life of Poetz” piece because it’s about the site, and I didn’t want it to become about me. Wasn’t trying to play cloak & dagger; apologies if it came across that way.

What can people expect in the Discourse area, and why is it called that? If you’ve got a better name than “Discourse” for a collection of short essays about the often-bizarre world of poetry readings, please share it in the comments. In terms of what to expect --

The few pieces already in Discourse have been updated, retitled and (in one case) split in two, in order to focus the subjects more clearly and call out those which are part of a series. This is my Week of Discourse, so expect other changes along those lines — renaming, recategorizing, etc. Once the structure’s in apple-pie order, you’ll see about two new essays each week.

Guest-written essays? Definitely a possibility. Keep an eye on the calls for submission — where, later this month, you’ll also find a call for the first-ever contest being sponsored by Poetz.

Reviews? ABSOLUTELY! Not just book reviews, but venue reviews, series reviews, even reviews of individual shows. Again, check the “calls” page for specifics.

I am counting on you to let me know what’s working and what isn’t in this new incarnation. What do you love, what do you hate, what seems to be missing overall? Let me know in the comments (yes, even if you have my email address!) — it’s the best way I know of to keep track of your suggestions.

Onward to week 2!

You’ve heard of band practice, even if you’ve never been in a band. How come we never hear of poet practice? It’s not unreasonable to spend an hour or two prepping for a feature. If you do that, you will kick ass at the reading and make new fans and likely sell some of your books and CDs. If you don’t? The reading might be okay, might be just fine — but is unlikely to be the best you could have delivered.

Some poets perform more often than others, and may not need to prep for every reading. Traveling poets may have a standard setlist and do the same show each time on a tour. They don’t need to prep each show. But I’ll bet you a dollar that at an earlier time they prepped like crazy to get their shows perfectly structured and paced. That’s how they became frequent performers: if you consistently blow the audience away when you perform, you will be asked to perform more often.

These are the basics:

1. poem selection
2. poem ordering
3. rehearsal
4. materials: prep, selection, production, introduction

Is it hard work, doing all this? Sometimes. Some of it’s fun. Certain elements, like rehearsal, can be difficult to schedule if you don’t have a lot of privacy or free time at home.

Most poets wouldn’t dream of submitting a piece for publication before it was edited and proofread and the best that it could be. So why submit a poem in performance that’s not the best that it can be onstage?

Honor your talent as a writer by going the extra mile. The hard work of prep is all worthwhile when you deliver a shining night that your audience — and you — will remember.