Published poet or international scam?

[SteveDallas]

If they actually put people's poetry in their books, then it's less of a scam than some of these "honor societies" that make their $$$ by selling books & such to you and (especially) your relatives.

It'd be interesting to ask, WHERE they read your stuff... since you've never seen it in print from what you said before.


My one experience with poetry (non-)publication was actually somewhat amusing. In 9th grade English we had to write poems, an activity which for me was akin to asking a cat to swim. Our teacher further decided that we should all experience rejection (I personally felt this was futile; I already had a good bit of experience with the concept), so we had to each choose two of our poems and submit them to a literary magazine for publication. By the end of the school year everybody had duly received their rejection letters.... except me. For a brief moment, I entertained with mixed horror and pride the possibility that they were actually going to publish my dreck. But, it was obvious that my stuff had been lost or filed in the circular file in spite of the SASE.

Fast forward five years, and during my sophomore year in college I received my rejection letter and poems from Hubris (what a nice name for a magazine, I always thought). At first I had no clue what it was when I opened the envelope, but then the memory started to float up. So, that was the beginning and merciful end of my career as a poet. (I always went in more for expository writing.)