The Poetry Edit
This week's newsletter looks at shame as part of the poetry process, and I put an unexpected poet under the spotlight.
Hello poetry lovers! This week has positively flown by, and I have been talking to anyone who will listen about creating paid opportunities for poets (including a major bookseller) - things are progressing, albeit slowly, but changing the poetry game was never going to be an easy process, so we forge on! On the plus side, word of The Poetry Edit is spreading and it has been a bumper few days in terms of subscribers, so a hearty welcome to our new members, and a huge thank you for being early supporters. It is wonderful to have you here! Before I tell you about something very unexpected that happened last week, a reminder: if you would like to submit for the next issue of The Poetry Edit newsletter, please send submissions via email to thepoetryedit@substack.com by midnight on May 8th, for publication on May 14th. Featured poets will be paid £100. There is no specific theme, and please note that you need to be a paid subscriber to submit.
There is a good reason why I’m reminding you of this in bold, shouty letters. The unexpected thing I mentioned earlier was that there were zero submissions to The Poetry Edit last week. Nothing. Not so much as a limerick. This was a bit of a surprise given the influx of poems for the previous two newsletters, and has left me in rather an awkward situation about what to include in this week’s edition. Is blank space poetic? I could probably come up with an argument for that, but you might feel (rightly) cheated. I have decided upon a solution which I will tell you about in a moment, but first I should take responsibility for failing to publicize the submission deadline sufficiently. Whereas in previous weeks I have put lots of reminders on Substack and social media, I was definitely remiss about doing this in the run up to last Wednesday and can only apologize for that. I am, however, thrilled to say that we are not in danger of a repeat occurrence next week, and that I have decided to feature at least two poems in the May 14th newsletter to make up for this particular botch. Please don’t hold back from sending in the fruits of your poetic labours. I know it sounds crazy and revolutionary but I really do want to pay poets for their work. The only thing is, you have to send it to me first! In the words of Jerry Maguire, help me help you!