Right now the main reason Spoonful is online and not on paper is money. Right now, there's no way to get such a project done without taking it out of my pocket.
All of my energy is being used to fill Stone Soup's seats and make sure our rent is paid. Bill Perrault has his archive project. Everyone else peripherally involved with Stone Soup, well, just wants a print journal to appear.
I'm not trying to hurt anyone's feelings. And I'm certainly not trying to upset any of my contributors (especially the older, more skeptical Stone Soup scenesters, who were still open and willing to send me work and seem to like how their work looks). I'm just trying to point out a certain mindset that even I had as a poet before I started helping out with Stone Soup back in 2005.
If we were to do a print journal now, it would have a print run more or less limited to its contributors. It baffles me that even bigger names in the Boston scene seem only interested participating in vanity projects and don't even seem to entertain the idea of getting the work in front of other people's eyes--non poets, say. If the general public's interest in poetry is the metaphorical equivalent of someone dangling off a cliff with one hand, I picture most poets in our scene stamping down on that hand. The fact that we've even had non-poets come in to Stone Soup as of late is not only a pleasure but, I think, important and necessary if Stone Soup and the Out of The Blue gallery is going to survive.
One of my many hopes with the online journal is to generate further interest in Stone Soup and hopefully have other people become involved with the weekly readings. Once that happens, I (or hopefully we) can set new, more ambitious goals. I've had one or two people express interest in editing and/or help with a print version. And if we ever do a print version, I would even be more interested in what Diana E. Saenz is doing: producing a print journal of Boston Poet with content separate from her website, giving our contributors a chance for more of their work to get out there.
Thanks for motivating me to write this, Ian, and thanks for your contribution.
1 comment:
You're welcome, and thank you for explaining this, not so much to me-- as the single word "money" would have been sufficient, but to the larger community.
I am always amazed how few people in the arts community grasp the money and work that go into maintaining a series, a venue, a journal, et cetera.
I've heard many an artist complain that the owner of this or that gallery is greedy simply because they are trying to make rent, or an owner not ask for a reasonable cut from sales for fear of appearing greedy (and thus constantly put their own venue in financial risk.)
(...and publishers do that too.)
Back when I was producing the Performance@Large series at Artists at Large some artists understood what I was doing as a producer-- that I was writing press releases, designing posters, and hanging up flyers all about town-- and they understood that that meant providing me with the information in a timely manner-- but some artists didn't get it, and those artists would not get an audience to come see their show.
(And don't even get me started on people who don't realize that performers need to take time to train and rehearse.)
The point is just that art isn't just magic-- it's magic combined with money, time, and labor (in varying quantities.)
And thanks for making that point.
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