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Commerce and Poetry - A VRB News Report

Redknott’s Art Leaves Profit Watchers Edgy

By Boniface Himmelforth

A Vrzhu Research Bureau Exclusive

Lobscouse Island, Maine — Paul Redknott has never released a book of poetry that was not a commercial and creative triumph, and his 10th book, “Waywardscape,” is looking to be no exception — at least artistically.

To the extreme irritation of the Knoughlin-Hifflin, however, two important business camps — Wall Street and Anaconda, the online shopping behemoth — are notably nervous about “Waywardscape.”

The book, by the 78-year-old Redknott, features dazzling poems that evoke the works of Hopkins, Geoffrey Hill and Barrett Watten. Like Redknott’s  American Book Award-winning “The Limestone Wall,” there are stretches of fragmented words, even phonemes. A few poems are rendered in white on white typeface.

Some poetry watchers, a few of them still griping about the hefty $2 million advance that Knoughlin-Hifflin paid Redknott for “The Limestone Wall,” are fretting about the book’s commercial potential, particularly when it comes to benefiting other Knoughlin-Hifflin efforts.

Robert Bluespan of Galactopoesis Research downgraded Knoughlin-Hifflin shares to sell last month, citing a poor outlook for “Waywardscape” as a reason. “We doubt the average reader will be that excited by the book,” he wrote, adding a complaint about the lack of a poems with sexy themes.

Mr. Bluespan is alone in his vociferousness, but not in his opinion.

“People seem to be concerned about this one,” said William Oscars, who follows Knoughlin-Hifflin at Casusbelli & Company. Brad Yogsothoth of Eldritch and Company, a business affiliate of Anaconda, said qualms ran deeper than whether “Waywardscape” will be a success — he thinks it will — but rather whether Redknott can deliver the kind of mega-success he once did.

“The worries keep coming despite Paul’s track record, because each book he delivers seems to be less accessible than the last,” Mr. Yogsothoth said.

Tony Eigersanction, Knoughlin-Hifflin’s chief executive, responded, “We seek to publish great poetry first. If a great poet gives birth to a franchise, we are the first company to leverage such success. A check-the-boxes approach to creativity is more likely to result in blandness and failure.”

The print run for “Waywardscape” is about 500,000, on par with other Redknott titles. “Waywardscape” will not arrive in bookstores until April 30, 2009, but Redknottistas — nudged along by the publisher, which has been posting poems on its site — are already effusive.

“Sophisticated, mature, poignant,” wrote Red Sky At Knott, a blog that chronicles everything Redknott. The New York City Tribeca Literary Festival is so excited about “Waywardscape,” that it slotted a reading with Redknott on its prestigious opening night, a huge promotional platform that has never before gone to a poet or book of poetry.

Adjusted for inflation, Redknott’s books have generated a combined $2.65 million in domestic sales, a spectacular showing. “Binge and Purge” in 2003 was the high point, generating 905,000 in hardback sales.

Redknott’s last two books, “Limestone Wall” and “Wankel’s Engine,” have been Redknott’s two worst performers according to Poetry Mojo, a tracking service. Sales of Redknott’s books have dropped sharply over the years, suggesting that price inflation helped prop up overall dollar figures for “Limestone Wall” and “Wankel’s Engine.”

Knoughlin-Hifflin marketers had hoped to curtail the it’s-not-commercial reaction to “Waywardscape” by breaking with past practice and widely publishing individual poems from the book online, and in newspapers and magazines. Inside the publishing house, executives are bullish on it, particularly because focus groups have responded favorably. The company added that it does not expect every Redknott book to become a franchise.

Perhaps Wall Street would not care so much if Redknott seemed to care a little more. Redknott said in a recent online question and answer session with reporters that the book’s commercial prospects never crossed his mind. “I write poems for myself,” he said. “I’m kind of ornery and selfish that way.”

Arthur Frockpru,  head of Knoughlin-Hifflin’s poetry division, routinely says in interviews that marketability is not a factor in decisions about what books and authors to pursue. Instead of ideas that feel contemporary, he aims for poems that are rooted in the ages.

“Quality is the best business plan” is one of Mr. Frockpru’s favorite lines.

“We wanted more Eliot and less McKuen,’ ” Mr. Frockpru said. “In certain parts, it’s more of a feeling we’re going after than linear narrative and accessibility.”

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Protect your reputation with...

The Poetry Termination Toolkit!

“The 3 Critical Factors You Must Consider Before Terminating Any Poem”

Let me tell you about discarding and terminating...

Collectively, the Vrzhu Research Bureau has had a poetry career spanning almost 8 years, semi-professionally. During this time we've written good poetry. But, unfortunately, we've also written lots of awful poetry that just couldn't be rehabilitated no matter how hard we tried. Also, we've had to discard poetry because of other considerations: the danger of libel, violation of local “morals” statutes, coffee stains. Because of our unique career as "turnaround" poetry professionals, we've been involved in over 110,000 poetic terminations.

To make termination easier on you and the poem, the VRB has created a step-by-step system for terminating and discarding poetry: The Poetry Termination Toolkit! We would like to share this proven and unique system with you.

With this system, you'll have all of the procedures and options you need to make a termination go smoothly. You'll have confidence and peace of mind that you're doing the right thing.

Please take 5 minutes (or more if you want)/(or less) and read this informational presentation-like advertisement. I'll tell you more about how to properly terminate poetry.

How would you categorize your poetry? (Check all that apply)

• Mainstream
• Experimental
• Past Avant
• Cowboy
• Beat
• Genius-y
• Don’t know

If you marked at least one of these … then you need to know how to terminate properly.

Before terminating or discarding a poem, there are 3 critical termination factors you must consider. In this article, we will cover these in detail:

• Factor #1: Fight Or Flight… How The Problem Poem Will Suck the Soul Right Out of You
• Factor #2: Your Problem Poem Will Destroy Your Morale and Results… If You Don’t Do Something About It Today
• Factor #3: The Longer You Wait… The Harder It Is To Terminate The Problem Poem
• Knowing these 3 factors will help you decide when it's time to terminate the problem poem.

Once you decide to terminate, you must know how. You'll discover that terminating is much easier and less risky than you thought.

Let’s get started with the 3 factors…

Factor #1: Fight Or Flight… How The Problem Poem Will Suck the Soul Right Out of You

The problem poem always knows it’s “on the bubble” and may be terminated soon. This wouldn’t be a problem if the poem would take the hint and improve its performance and behavior. But, this seldom happens because a bad apple remains a bad apple. Instead, you’ll notice that its behavior will get worse. Your problem poem will either:

• Begin an intimidation campaign against you inside your brain, or,
• Become a zombie doing little poetic work.

You’ll notice these behaviors match the “fight or flight” response you learned to use in school. If you recall, when an animal gets into trouble, there are just two reactions, fight or flight. As we’ve seen, your poem will react the same way when its status in your oeuvre is threatened.

In either case, your only recourse is to get rid of the poem as quickly as possible, especially if your poetry is facing hardship from the recent economic or talent troubles...

Let us cover each of these reactions.

In our experience, most poems will decide to “fight” and carry out an intimidation campaign. Sometimes these campaigns are subtle, but often they’re very public. Here’s what happens.

The poem wants you to suffer as much as possible. Its goal is to use up your time and energy on it until you can’t back off.

In this case, you only have one choice. You must show it (and your other poems) you’re the Poet. You can’t have a poem undermining your authority. Its malicious and ridiculous lines justify its termination.

Now let’s discuss the opposite reaction, “flight.” In this scenario, the problem poem shuts down and stops working. It refuses to change and hopes to have you stop writing altogether.

At this point, the poem has accepted that you’ll eventually get rid of it it. So, its strategy is to drain as much creativity and inspiration as possible out of you while providing the least possible return, often not even a stanza. In effect, it’s daring you to terminate it.

What do you do? You can try to rehabilitate it, but the poem is now too far gone. Your best choice is to terminate now ... but you need to do it right.

(By the way, this is also the best thing for the poem as well. It's clear that its not happy and productive. It's better to give it the push to find another niche that is better suited for it: prose poem, short-short, shopping list, pornography. You are actually doing the problem poem a favor when you terminate.)

In the next section, we will talk about the consequences of keeping a problem poem longer than you should.

Factor #2: The Problem Poem Will Destroy Your Morale and Results… If You Don’t Do Something About It Today

Suppose you decide to give the problem poem an extra chance and let him stay in your manuscript or active submission list. What happens to you and your good poems?

Let us give it to you straight. The poem will poison the poetic environment it comes into contact with, including book contests, workshops, journal submissions, other poets, and your long-suffering non-poetry friends, to the extent you still have any. This is a natural outcome to being an “on-the-bubble” poem and being bad.

Your poetry will suffer because you’ll be losing inspiration and places to submit… and because you now have to spend so much time rewriting just this one poem. Unfortunately, it may take you years to re-establish any level of interest from other people in your poems again, if ever.

Besides this, the poem may poison your relationship with your other poems. Your “good” poems will see it’s all right to read badly and not to fulfill their potential. Your morale will drop, and this will further erode results.

Here’s the worst part. You’ll lose your best performing poems. That one poem that “kills” at readings will be met by indifference, contempt and derision. The journals that previous took your work faithfully will now return your poems with a generic rejection slip and a subscription card. And your friends…well, you haven’t seen them lately, have you?

The problem poem is a malignant cancer on your poetry. This cancer spreads by turning good poems into bad ones and by forcing your best poems out. In either case, you must cut out the cancer at its source before it spreads further. The cancer.

In the next section, you’ll learn why cutting out the cancerous problem poem becomes much harder with every extra day you wait to terminate.

Factor #3: The Longer You Wait… The Harder It Is To Terminate The Poem

If you wait to terminate the poem, there is a good chance you’ll never be rid of it.

Let me give you two common reasons this happens.

First, if you decide to rehabilitate the problem poem, it will drain all the energy from you. You’ll find yourself spending all your time working on this one poem and fighting any damage it’s causing to your style. Eventually, it wears you down, but you still can’t leave it alone.

Why? Because terminating the poem is admitting that you failed. (By the way, if this describes your situation, I want you to know you’ve not failed, probably. Most problem poem can’t be saved regardless of what you do. Remember… a bad apple remains a bad apple.)

Second, by waiting to terminate, you’re giving the problem poem time to infect your entire poetry “career.” Its strategy is to unmask your weaknesses as a poet and magnify any mistakes—incredibly stupid mistakes a five-year old wouldn’t make—you’ve made.

So why do poets wait to eliminate a problem poem… when it’s obvious you should get rid of it right away?

The primary reason is most poets have never been trained in proper termination procedures… and they're afraid of making mistakes, of throwing away a perfectly good poem, or even a great one. But don’t let this hold you back. Really. With our system, you’ll discover an easy and low risk way to terminate even the most difficult poem.

Now You Can Terminate Without Worry

Although we here at the VRB are no stranger to terminating and deleting poems, We'd still like you to think we're much like you. In the past, we didn’t get rid of poems as fast as we should have. We let them walk all over us while giving them a “chance.”

Finally, sick and tired of being taken advantage of, it became clear the problem poem was taking advantage of us for treating it fairly… and daring us to terminate it.

We hesitated to terminate because we didn’t have a consistent termination approach. So we made up this wish list for our ideal termination approach…

First, it must have practical termination procedures and effective options you could apply in any mental state.

Second, it must have a method for knowing your risk before you terminate… and it must tell you what to do for each risk level. This method must be simple enough that an average poet can use it without needing to spend big bucks on the Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. For example.

Third, it must give solid recommendations for handling difficult and tricky terminations especially when they are high risk.

“Necessity is the mother of invention” –Plato in the Republic

“He who hesitates is lost” –the Marquis de Sade in 120 Days in Sodom

Here is just some of the useful knowledge you’ll discover in the VRB's Poetry Termination Toolkit…

• Five deadly errors you can make when terminating an poetry and how you can easily avoid them.
• Ingenious tricks to foist a bad poem on the public.
• The important criteria you must consider before any termination.

Like Talking To A Trusted Friend

The Poetry Termination Toolkit is the only toolkit available that takes you by the hand and shows you how to terminate poems. We’ve written the Toolkit in a conversational style to make it easy-to-read and use. It’s like talking to a trusted friend about your troubles over a cup of coffee, having them actually care, and getting a straight answer about what to do.

When you’re through reading the Poetry Termination Toolkit, you’ll know how to do the right thing.

You can easily follow these procedures even if you’re a new poet. Also, our termination methods work for poems of all sizes from one-word saroyanisms to sestinas to epic novels-in-verse, regardless of your poetics. This is a universal guidebook you can use wherever your attempt at a career takes you.

The Poetry Termination Toolkit includes the Vrzhu Research Bureau's proprietary and trademarked Poetic Risk Estimate & Guilt Avoidance System™. This system is unique. Nobody else shows ordinary poets how to find out the risk of deleting, withdrawing, and terminating poems.

Here are some other unique topics you’ll get in the Toolkit…

• Should you give a termination reason? You’ll find a surprising answer.
• A complete list of 64 bad factors that make a poem bad and for which you should terminate immediately.
• A sensitive and respectful way to get the ex-poetry out of your manuscript.

As you know, the VRB has loaded the Poetry Termination Toolkit with tons of reliable procedures, effective options and practical recommendations that apply anywhere, anytime, to anyone. But, we haven’t covered everything so far. Believe us, there’s plenty more.

Let us give you a summary.

You'll get these tools with the Poetry Termination Toolkit:

• Tool #1: Top Ten Most Difficult Kinds of Poems And How To Handle Them Like A Pro
• Tool #2: Poetry Warning Signs You Should Know
• Tool #3: “Fill-In-The-Blank” Poems and Poetics

We guarantee these tools will make your life much easier when you decide to write, or revise, or discard. They do the hard work for you.

Sincerely,

The Vrzhu Research Bureau

Remember...The Vrzhu Research Bureau. "Poetry Solutions for Non-Poets. Poetry Non-Solutions for Everyone Else."

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Hello, and welcome to Vrzhu Bullets of Love blog, the only blog with the Fine Beekeeping seal of approval.

For a while now, poets have been writing into the Vrzhu Research Bureau (a wholly owned subsidiary of Vrzhu Press) and asking: “Dear Vrzhu Research Bureau, how can I take advantage of today’s exciting new “web log” technology to increase my market share in the highly competitive world of being noticed by the rest of the poetry world?”

Well, as Mark Twain said, "Don’t panic! The VRB is here to take advantage for you!"

INTRODUCING OUR NEWEST SERVICE

That’s right, the VRB is on the cusp of introducing a dynamic new way to make your poetry successful and talked about! Now you cannot only be part of the conversation, you yourself can be a topic of conversation by signing up for the VRB Blogtopia Mentioning Service (BMS).

What is the VRB Blogtopia Mentioning Service?

Many of you have invested in previous VRB products and services, such as

The Poetry Poncho

TheInspiration Poetry Success Training

Famous Poem Tablets

Poetry Protective Safetywear

And more

Now, VRB’s Blogtopia Mentioning Service takes it to a whole new level.  With BMS, for just a small monthly fee, we will work your name into every single one of our patented “vrzhu” posts.  This is guaranteed.  No matter how unrelated the post topic might seem your name will be seamlessly woven into it so as to appear an organic and integral part of the whole.

Of course that's just the basic service.  For a limited time during this introductory period, we are also offering the BMS Enhanced Package.  The BMSEP includes up to 4 links of your choice per month, with an appropriate context, photos of you in every 5 out of seven posts (cumulatively), and selected quotes by you highlighted at your request in every other post. And this special package is TOTALLY FREE for the first 9 months, and at a 27% discount off our regular enhanced package price from then on.

But, exciting as that sounds, hold on! Because THAT'S NOT ALL. For just $4.99 more a month--that's right! $4.99 (are we crazy or what?!)--you have the fantastic opportunity to become one of the few customers receiving our BMS Executive Deluxe Skybox Service. Our BMSEDSS service is UNIQUE in the blogroll servicing industry, and we accept only a very limited number of applications for this high end product. With our Executive Deluxe Skybox service, here's what you’ll get:

Everything already included in both the basic and the enhanced service

PLUS

• Posts especially designed to highlight your interests and strengths, put together by our internationally recognized team of "Mentioneers."
• Posts with photoshopped pictures of you with nationally-known poets, writers, celebrities and politicians, including such activities as shaking hands, laughing together, in serious conversation holding drinks, and seated at the same table at national poetry events such as the AWP Conference.

• Blurbs about your work from respected poets, scholars and critics inserted into posts.
• Insightful and memorable quotes by you written by our crack research team on topics covered in posts, including meme-worthy catchphrases, epigrams and apothegms. SoQ, anyone?
• Penetrating, controversial comments in your name  and writing style by that same crack research team in OTHER poetry blogs on a regular basis.

We're TOTALLY EXCITED to be able to offer you this amazing service. Why not sign up today?  An initial, binding, three year contract with your name on it is waiting for YOU to say YES.

Our amazing new service will leave you "Speechless, upon a peak in Darien!"

Note: This service may not be available in some jurisdictions and on some network servers. Void where prohibited.

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A recent search through the vast holdings of the Vrzhu Research Bureau archives uncovered the draft of a  previously unknown poem by John Keats.  It appears that Keats started on this poem just before his Annus Mirabilis of 1819.  He abandoned the effort late in 1818, as is made clear by a hastily scribbled annotation at the bottom: "Note to self: Never drink Laphroaig Scotch again! Bloody newfangled hippocrene nearly did me in! Look at this shite!"

It's evident that Keats cannabilized the best of this draft for his "Ode to Pysche," but why he did not continue with the poem below, or why he made the change is open to speculation, absent any other documentary evidence.

Ode to the Accordion (draft)
John Keats

O Accordion!  Hear these tuneless numbers, wrung
     By sweet enforcement and remembrance dear,
And pardon that thy secrets should be sung
     Even into thine own squeeze-boxèd ear:
Surely I dreamt to-day, or did I see
     The strapped accordion with awaken'd eyes?
I wander'd in a forest thoughtlessly,
     And, on the sudden, fainting with surprise,
Saw two fair creatures, couchèd side by side
     In deepest grass, beneath the whisp'ring roof
     Of leaves and tremblèd blossoms, where there ran
          A brooklet, scarce espied:

'Mid hush'd, cool-rooted flowers, fragrant-eyed,
     Blue, silver-white, and budded Tyrian,
He lay calm-breathing on the bedded grass;
     Arms embraced an accordion new;
     His lips mov'd not, but had not bid adieu,
As if disjoinèd by soft-handed slumber,
And ready still to play a Polka number
     At tender eye-dawn of Tyrolean love.
          The winged boy I knew;
     But who wast thou, O happy, happy dove?
          His Accordion true!

O German born and loveliest vision far
     Of Terpishore’s faded hierarchy!
Fairer than Banjo or torso’d Guitar,
     Or Bagpipes, amorous wheeze-drones of northlands high;
Fairer than these, though temple thou hast none,
     Nor altar heap'd with flowers;
Nor dirndl’d-choir to make delicious moan
     Upon the midnight hours;
No voice, no lute, no pipe, no Pilsner sweet
     From foaming beer stein teeming;
No shrine, no grove, no oracle, no heat
     Of pale-mouth'd Polka dreaming.

O brightest!  though too late for antique vows,
     Too, too late for the fond believing lyre,
When holy were the haunted forest boughs,
     Holy the air, the water, and the fire;
Yet even in these days so far retir'd
     From gay pieties, thy lucent bellows,
     Fluttering among the Czech-Slovak fellows,
I see, and sing, by my own eyes inspired.
     So let me be thy choir, and make a moan
          Upon the midnight hours;
Thy voice, thy lute, thy pipe, thy keyboard sweet
     From swingèd tempos teeming;
Thy reeds, thy grill, thy buttons bass, thy heat
     Of pale-mouth'd Polka dreaming.

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On Bartleby.com you can download The Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1920, edited by William Stanley Braithwaite. What's interesting about this book is it is a kind of equivalent to David Lehman's Best American Poetry anthologies (without the branding). What's more interesting is that it includes (unlike the BAPs, though to be fair, a similar effort today would be almost impossible and would eat up half the anthology) a Yearbook of American Poetry. The yearbook contains:

• An Index of Poets and Poems Published in American Magazines: August, 1919—July, 1920
• Articles and Reviews of Poets Poetry Published During 1919—1920
• Volumes of Poems During 1919—1920
• A Select List of Books about Poets and Poetry

Ah, data.

Using a somewhat arbitrary standard (my own knowledge) here is some slicing and dicing:

    -Of the 591 poets published in American magazines, 21 or 4.05%, could still be called commonly recognized names. 

    -Of the 591 poets published, only 7, or 1.35%, could be said to be either (1) still possibly influential—as poets—for the majority of poets writing today, or (2) at least commonly read at some point in school or otherwise.

Some of the poets published are better known now for something other than there poetry.

Yeats and Pound (one of the Cantos) both published a single poem in an American magazine in 1919.

The number of poets who published four or more poems in 1919 is 91 total.  Thirty-four or 37% of those were women. 

Here are those 91 poets:

Lister Raymond Alwood,  Mary Austin,  Karle Wilson Baker,  Helen Baldwin,  William Rose Benét,  Helen Birch-Bartlett,  Maxwell Bodenheim,  Stirling Bowen,  Gamaliel Bradford,  Amelia Josephine Burr,  Witter Bynner,  Archie Austin Coates,  Elizabeth J. Coatsworth,  Ann Cobb,  Hilda Conkling,  Alice Corbin,  Malcolm Cowley,  Nelson Antrim Crawford,  E. E. CummingsMary Carolyn Davies,  H. L. Davis,  Glenn Ward Dresbach,  Louise Driscoll,  Myrtle Eberstein,  Paul Eldridge,  John Chipman Farrar,  John Finley,  Mahlon Leonard Fisher,  John Gould Fletcher,  Robert Frost,  Louise Ayres Garnett,  Wilfred Wilson Gibson,  Caroline Giltinan,  Herbert S. Gorman,  William Griffith,  Amanda Hall,  Hazel Hall,  Eleanor Hammond,  Amory Hare,  Marsden Hartley,  Gordon Malherbe Hillman,  Raymond Holden,  Helen Hoyt,  Leroy F. Jackson,  Oliver Jenkins,  Leslie Nelson Jennings,  Ruth Lambert Jones,  Harry Kemp,  Alfred Kreymborg,  Richard Le Gallienne,  Maurice Lesemann,  Agnes Lee,  Janet Loxley Lewis,  Amy Lowell,  Jeannette Marks,  Edna St Vincent Millay,  J. Corson Miller,  David Morton,  Keneth Morris,  Charles R. Murphy,  Katharine Wisner McCluskey,  Carlyle F. McIntyre,  Robert Nichols,  Norreys Jephson O’Conor,  John R. C. Peyton,  Bernard Raymund,  Lizette Woodworth Reese,  Lola Ridge,  Robert J. Roe,  Marx G. Sabel,  Carl Sandburg,  Edward Sapir,  Lew Sarett,  Evelyn Scott,  Marjorie Allen Seiffert,  William H. Simpson,  Ira South,  Leonora Speyer,  George Sterling,  Wallace Stevens,  Marion Strobel,  Sara Teasdale,  Albert Edmund Trombly,  Mark Turbyfill,  Louis Untermeyer,  Eda Lou Walton,  Winifred Welles,  Marguerite Wilkinson,  John French Wilson,  A.Y.Winters,  Marya Zaturensky.

There are some recognizable names there.

Looking at the the volumes of Poetry published during 1919–1920, the statistics here are even more sere:

There were 137 volumes of poetry or poetry anthology published in 1919 in America.

Of these 137 books, there are 16, or 11.68%, writers whose name would still commonly be recognized. This is not to say that you wouldn’t recognize more than 16, but it might mean, if you do, you need to get out more.

Of these 137 writers, only 1, or 0.73%,could be said to be still (possibly) actively influential on poets writing today. In my judgment. This is not to say that the others on the list are not good (or even better than good) poets.  Only that I don’t see their poetry actively engaged in the poetry being written today. The one poet I could probably say that for is T. S. Eliot, whose book, Poems, was published by Alfred A. Knopf.

Here are the names of the writers from the list of volumes of poetry publish in 1919 America I recognized for whatever reason (that is, not always poetry)

• Stephen Vincent Benét
• Paul Claudel
• Walter de la Mare
• Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
• T. S.  Eliot.
• Robert Hillyer
• Rudyard Kipling
• Vachel Lindsay
• John Masefield
• Edwin Arlington Robinson
• Siegfried Sassoon
• Rudolph Steiner
• Louis Untermeyer
• Clement Wood

Let's extrapolate

Today, there are 127 publishers of poetry according to this.

And according to a 2004 article in Publisher's Weekly, 17 representative publishers put out a maximum of 118 books.  So the average is about 7.

If those 127 publishers each put out 7 books, 889 books of poetry would be published in any given current year. It might be more, since there are many small and micropresses that wouldn’t show up on lists such as the above. On the other hand, there are probably plenty of those presses that issue 1, maybe 2 books a year. We're only eyeballing the numbers here for argument's sake.

So let’s round up to an even 1,000 books per year.  How many of the poets writing these books will be still influential 89 years (the same number of years from 1919 to 2008) from now, in 2097?  If Braithewaite's anthology is any guide, 0.73% of them.  Or about seven poets. It's possible it could be more given the advances in print and electronic storage technology. It could also be less given the public's indifference to poetry, our educational system's abandonment of teaching poetry to increase the emphasis on "basics", and so on. So  let's assume a steady state among any population of poets: at any given time, only 0.73% will still be contributing to the art of poetry in any active sense 89 years later. Take this year. What 7 poets writing today will win the gold 89 years hence?

A Contest

The Vrzhu Research Bureau announces a new and unique poetry contest:

The Poets Writing And Publishing In 2008 Still Actively Influential In 2097 Contest

The rules are simple. Use the form below to fill out your choices for the seven poets writing today who will still be influential in the year 2097, include your name, address and contact information, and mail your entry to:

Poets Writing And Publishing In 2008 Still Actively Influential In 2097 Contest
Vrzhu Research Bureau
3323 14th Street, N.E.
Washington, D.C. 20017

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The Seven Poets Writing And Publishing In 2008 Still Actively Influential In 2097 will be:

1.___________________

2.___________________

3.___________________

4.___________________

5.___________________

6.___________________

7.___________________

My Name:

My Address:

My Contact Information:

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All entries will be sealed and placed in a time capsule in the Vrzhu Research Bureau Archives.  Upon opening on January 1, 2098, a panel of statisticians will use advanced technology to determine which entry or entries most accurately reflects which poets writing and publishing in 2008 C.E. are considered still actively influential for the year 2097 C.E. Winners will be announced telepathically by June 30, 2009.

Deadline for submission is December 31, 2008. There is no entry fee.

The winner or winners will have their poetry manuscript published by the Vrzhu Research Bureau, or its successor. 

Note: DO NOT enclose a poetry manuscript with your entry.  Any material, written or otherwise, OTHER THAN the entry form (or facsimile thereof) will be discarded. Manuscripts will be solicited from the winning entry or entries after the announcement of the winners. The Vrzhu Research Bureau takes no responsibility.

Members and employees of the Vrzhu Research Bureau and any of its affiliates, and family members of members or employees of the Vrzhu Research Bureau and any of its affiliates, are ineligible.