Features Part 3: More email madness
So today I get an email from a poet (that I don't know, but that's not the problem) who sends a couple of prose poems, then a bio at the bottom. I won't reprint it here because it's their work and it's too long (which you could have figured out from knowing that it was prose poetry to begin with; ha! I pee-pee on your Creative Writing class forms!), but I thought it was an interesting attempt to do the right thing. My only serious problem with it is that the poet in question didn't SAY anything. Considering he doesn't even live in this country, I shudder to think what they thought I might do with their information. I can see it now:
Stupid Me (assuming you could clone my infamously bad ass in the first place and make the facsimile stupid at a genetic level): Hey Vernell, I'm thinking about bringing this feature in to the Writers' Block.
Vernell Bristow: Yeah? Who?
Stupid Me: This guy from India.
Vernell: (pause) Is he on tour or something?
Stupid Me: Not that I know of. I never heard of the guy, but he sent me some poetry that works on the page...well, screen...so I was thinking it might be cool to have him one Wednesday.
Vernell: (pause) Is he already going to be in Columbus or something?
Stupid Me: Not that I'm aware of. He didn't say that. He just sent the poems and a bio.
Vernell: (pause, sips her Smirnoff Ice) You're about as thick as cheese shit, you know that?
So, for all the poets trying to become features who fall before me in drooling advice and desire on a daily basis whose shins I kick and whose lips I scoff(because I am a powerful asshole): Tell the organizer what you want, be that a feature, consideration for publsihing, just to get in the Rolodex...whatever.
Stupid Me (assuming you could clone my infamously bad ass in the first place and make the facsimile stupid at a genetic level): Hey Vernell, I'm thinking about bringing this feature in to the Writers' Block.
Vernell Bristow: Yeah? Who?
Stupid Me: This guy from India.
Vernell: (pause) Is he on tour or something?
Stupid Me: Not that I know of. I never heard of the guy, but he sent me some poetry that works on the page...well, screen...so I was thinking it might be cool to have him one Wednesday.
Vernell: (pause) Is he already going to be in Columbus or something?
Stupid Me: Not that I'm aware of. He didn't say that. He just sent the poems and a bio.
Vernell: (pause, sips her Smirnoff Ice) You're about as thick as cheese shit, you know that?
So, for all the poets trying to become features who fall before me in drooling advice and desire on a daily basis whose shins I kick and whose lips I scoff(because I am a powerful asshole): Tell the organizer what you want, be that a feature, consideration for publsihing, just to get in the Rolodex...whatever.