June 12: Another Story, Waiting for Rain, Publication

"Tell me another story!" begged Wilbur.

Wilbur is expressing a very human urge.  We all love to hear good stories.  That's why books like Charlotte's Web and The Catcher in the Rye and A Christmas Carol still exist.  They are wonderful tales.

I have not been reading much this week.  Nothing new resides in my book bag.  I've read a few good poems, but most of my reading has been back issues of Entertainment Weekly in my bathroom.  Yes, I deserve to be shamed.  I apologize.  In my defense, I have been working like mad on my Father's Day poem, which I will unveil to my disciples this Sunday.  Hopefully.

At the moment, I'm sitting in my office, blogging, waiting for the rain to start while my daughter is at dance rehearsal.  It looks like the heavens are really going to unleash something.  Dark, low clouds.  Plenty of wind.  Dusk falling.

I have decided that I am going to put forth a concerted effort to publish this summer.  I have a completed poetry manuscript that I need to place somewhere.  Somewhere good.  If I am ever going to get a full-time teaching position at a university anywhere, I need to publish.  Unfortunately, the old chestnut is true:  publish or perish.  I've been perishing for way too long.

Well, it's time to pick up my daughter.  No rain.

Saint Marty isn't going to get wet.  Yet.

This says it all

May 29: PRINTING HISTORY, Getting Published, Not Publishing

At the front of my copy of The Catcher in the Rye comes this information:

PRINTING HISTORY

One incident appeared in a different form as

a story in COLLIER'S December 1945

One incident appeared in a different form as a story

in THE NEW YORKER December 1946

Little, Brown edition published July 1951

26 printings through 1968

Book-of-the-Month Club selection July 1951

Grosset & Dunlap edition published June 1952

Modern Library edition published September 1958

Franklin Watts edition published February 1967

Bantam edition / April 1964

52 printings through February 1981

It's a little story in and of itself.  J. D. Salinger's book is one of the most famous novels in the world, beloved by angst-ridden teenagers and assassins alike.  I believe Salinger only published a couple other things after Catcher, and then, like Willy Wonka, closed his factory doors forever.  There has been speculation about a vault of unpublished manuscripts since Salinger died in 2010, but no new J. D. Salinger novel has surfaced as of yet.

The publication history of a book says a lot about the book and the author.  I pick up a collection of poems by Sharon Olds, and its history contains the names of some of the most prestigious journals and magazines in the United States:  Poetry, The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Slate, Ploughshares, and The American Poetry Review.  That's pretty friggin' impressive.  Sharon Olds could write and teach any where she wanted.  Salinger, regardless of his anemic publishing history, could have also walked into the English Department at Harvard and landed a tenured position with a six-figure salary.  (I can imagine the conversation with the Department Head:  "Oh, yes, Mr. Salinger.  Right away, Mr. Salinger.  Would you like a coffee enema, Mr. Salinger?")

I have a pretty unimpressive publishing history.  I've managed a couple of good print and online journals, but, for the most part, this blog has been my venue for transmitting my prose and poetry to the world.  I recently sent out a chapbook manuscript to a contest.  One of the requirements of submission was including a list of places where the poems in the collection had already appeared (a history).  I had to skip that page.  I could have made something up.  I've always wanted to publish in Paris Review and The New Yorker.  But some people frown upon that kind of thing.  They think of it as academic fraud.  Whatever.

I worry about publication.  I worry because publication is one of my tickets to full-time employment at the university.  If I won the Iowa Prize for poetry or the National Book Award, I would be offered a tenure-track job tomorrow.  I've thought about pulling a J. D. Salinger.  You know, publishing one really successful book and then disappearing from the public eye.  My fame would grow as I avoided photographers and reporters and Jehovah's Witnesses.  Hey, it worked for Salinger and Thomas Pynchon.

Of course, the hitch in that scenario is that I first have to publish something of real note.  Then I can turn into J. D. Salinger.  My worry is that I can't even get an obituary published right now.  So why would anybody want to hire me as a professor?

Saint Marty needs to publish or perish.  Unfortunately, perishing is a lot easier.

I could do this pose

January 18: Jane, Allie's Baseball Mitt, Poetry

...And she never really closed it all the way, her mouth.  It was always just a little bit open, especially when she got in her golf stance, or when she was reading a book.  She was always reading, and she read very good books.  She read a lot of poetry and all.  She was the only one, outside my family, that I ever showed Allie's baseball mitt to, with all the poems written on it.  She's never met Allie or anything, because that was her first summer in Maine--before that, she went to Cape Cod--but I told her quite a lot about him.  She was interested in that kind of stuff.

Jane and Holden are interested in poetry.  In fact, Holden seems to equate poetry with being true and pure of heart.  Allie loved poetry.  Jane loves poetry.  Holden loves poetry.  And Jane.  And Allie.   

Yes, I am typing this post at almost nine o'clock at night.  I started out this morning being really productive.  I put together the materials for a church project; however, it took me over two-and-a-half hours to get it done.  After that, I really didn't get a whole lot more accomplished.  I bought a new watch, cleaned my house, and got my broken tooth fixed.  I didn't blog this morning.  I didn't get any more of 11/22/63 read.  I didn't get a poem written today, which was my biggest goal.  Perhaps I set my sights a little too high.

I really need to start working more on my poetry.  If I ever want to be hired full-time at the university, it's all about publication.  Most people have heard the saying "publish or perish."  In fact, when it comes to higher education, it's almost a cliche.  It's an accurate cliche, however.  Writers who want to be professors need to publish books.  I have one published book right now and another manuscript finished.  That's not enough.

So, what am I saying?  I'm saying I can't afford too many days that aren't productive.  I should have submitted poems to some literary journals today.  I should have researched potential publishers.  I should have written a new poem.  All those things would help my career at the university.

Yes, poetry could help me get a job.  Not too many people can say that.  Perhaps Holden would think of me as a phony or sell-out.  I can live with that.  By selling out, I can support my family doing something that I love.  The kind of job that doesn't even feel like a job.  An Oprah Winfrey kind of job.

Now if Saint Marty could land a book on Oprah's Book Club.

I do look good in berets...