Writing the Perfect Beast #3
The wider consequences of how we place Value [TM] in our own work...
Starting this week, and going forward, I have decided to talk honestly about the business of how I write poetry. There are people who teach how to create poetry, how to format it, how to submit and how publishing in general works. I am not seeing that many people doing work on what you need to do with your brain and mental attitudes to make that stick, grow and then evolve. HI THERE.
Letās see if we can change that.
I hold a significant amount of emotional attachment to my work. This has always been the case, and inevitably springs from the process of creation, which is totally unique to me. When other people read that work, do they ever consider that depth and breadth in the output? What do they think and feel when they see a poem on the page? Does the emotional weight of work even matter?
In the last month, my complex relationship with value has been robustly tested, and the importance of poetry as an emotional response has been scrutinised quite closely. It has made me consider at length what matters most in my creative process: is it only the outcome, or the journey to build it? Am I not detached enough from the processes to begin withā¦ or is this the wrong approach entirely?
Poetry, as a process, has many values.
Every time I send a piece of work for submission, I make a set of well-established and personally valued decisions. All of these are wrapped up in the process of belief and confidence: I believe there is no more work to done, and consider the job that the poem was written for to be complete. When someone else receives this work, and then reads it, what is their first thought?
Only recently has it become apparent that none of my concerns matter to the person at the other end of the process. All that they see are my words. If those words arenāt clear or able to provoke the emotions they seek [*], then the process of getting them to publish you is at an end. Some are more blunt: to place value in your output, they need to consider the work as saleable.
If you canāt prove your work is commercially viable then it is effectively worthless.
Thereās a website Iāve visited in the last week which pulls no punches over this: if youāre sending a collection to them and thereās not sufficient work thatās been successful in both literary journals and magazines, donāt even bother submitting. This publisher wonāt pay you though, so donāt expect an advance. Value becomes a subjective weapon.
It also becomes the means by which it is impossible to make progress unless you can create something so original and arresting that it is impossible for people to ignore, or you have enough money and time to print and distribute your own work in a way that removes the traditional publication process from the requirement. If all that matters is validation, then the rules again change.
This is why I withdrew Forest Management from Hedgehog Poetry Press.
Not one piece of FM has been published elsewhere: it is an original, complex and necessary sequence of poems that form a complete, unique narrative. The fact that this work was shortlisted previously by Live Canon was the benchmark for value: a complete stranger, reading my work cold, established what I was trying to do. At that point, without winning anything, this creation process was validated.
It won the Hedgehog contest, presumably, because a second person read it cold with the exact same effect. Its value therefore remains unsullied, and I have this week sent the manuscript away one last time. It has had a change of title and the weakest poem in the sequence has been edited out. My gut and logic suggests that if it really IS original brilliance, I should at least make a longlist with it.
If it fails to place, I will publish this labour of love myself in 2026.
I took my work away from a publisher because although he had valued my work, I felt he did not value the process of creation. In a world where the Arts are being wholesale commodified, and where true effort and originality is being eaten alive via the rise of AI, individual creativity has never been as priceless as it is now. Thatās the key here, other people should not get to value my work in this way.
If youāre using Amazon to create author copies for poets, thatās a significant Red Flag for me. Ingram are cheap for a reason, and I consider their output as shoddy and depressing. It is not hard to create a publishing model that respects work and creates finished products that feel as if they were made with care and attention to detail. I see it in many places. I value the publishers which do this.
Value is having ALL your processes respected by a publisher.
My work will be unpalatable to those whose ethical and political viewpoints do not align with mine. Thereās certain spaces Iām wasting my time submitting to as a result, and I donāt ever expect that to change. There are very few level playing fields in publishing, and that has always been the case. Itās why I respect so much those who do their best to rise above it.
Value is different things to different people: all that ever should matter however is your own validation. That is the easiest thing in the world to type and the hardest thing in the world to believe when youāre the one who is sitting in the dark, waiting for a response to your work. There are lots of ways to make that process easier, and the one that works best for me is distraction.
This is why I find something completely in my own auspice to do when not writing.
Iāve started creating these posts with one aim: if I am struggling with the process of poetry, other people will be too. You are not alone. To succeed in anything takes time, dedication and crucially consistency, all things that lifting weights has reinforced as a mantra across the years. It is only this year however that Iāve seen real improvement in my ability and stamina, and I know why that is.
Self-belief is incredibly difficult when everything around you is on fire and the world seems to be self-destructing. I accept this has always been the case. What I am embracing is the value of measuring results using kindness and love. When I look past the noise and the chaos and back to exercise, it nurtures and creates a unique response that matters ONLY to me. This is its greatest value.
It becomes the power that moves both me and my processes forward.
[*] These are not the only considerations, obviously, but this is a post for later down the lineā¦
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