on the economics of poetry

I’ve been thinking about the whole “economics of poetry” because my latest work project has me tracking down copyrights and seeking permissions to reprint several poems for a small in-house publication. We had hoped to make it a web-based project, but the whole process of obtaining the permissions (to say nothing of the expense) has deterred us, completely. And it’s really too bad as the impact of the volume will be limited, whereas the web version could have reached many thousands of people.

There are, apparently, poets who get really angry whenever an unauthorized copy of one of their poems shows up on the web, even on someone’s blog, and some have made a habit of retaliating, or at least taking on the offenders.

I’m guilty of sharing poems myself, on this blog, without permission, but as I have a readership of five, I’m under the radar, so to speak.

Do poets (should poets) have legal recourse when copyrights are violated in this innocuous way?

There’s a parallel with the music industry. Even if poetry doesn’t have the same currency as music does and even if poetry publishers lack the power of recording industry execs, sharing poems on the internet is, like sharing music, technically, illegal. And the argument (even if it’s more likely to be raised by the poets themselves, not their publishers) is the same: making poetry available for free on the internet (I can simply Google Mary Oliver and find her poems) cuts into sales of poetry books. But the “lost sales” argument begs several questions. One, it assumes every poem (or song) downloaded equals a lost sale, and this is absolutely not the case. Kids today have so many songs on their ipods because the songs are cheap, or free. If they had to pay for them, as we did, back in the day, they’d own a lot less music. And two, it completely ignores the role of the internet in popularizing music, and poetry.

I hadn’t even heard of Mary Oliver before encountering her poems on the web – maybe through a legitimate online publication, maybe someone’s blog, I don’t know, it’s beside the point. And while I like her poetry, I’m not sure I’d pay for it. I have a limited poetry budget, and all the internet does is allow me to read more poetry than I can afford. If the poetry weren’t available for free, I wouldn’t be paying for it, I’d be consuming less, reading other things.

I have no way of proving this, but I’d venture to guess that the internet is a good thing for poetry, and even for music. Sales of CDs may be down, but not by nearly the volume represented by illegal downloads. I don’t know how many lost sales are represented by, say, 100 illegal downloads, but I’d be surprised if it were even 10. The internet grows the market, even as it drives down prices.

I recognize poets have to earn a living, and it would be a pretty cool world if they could earn a living from their poetry. But we don’t live in such a world. The economics of poetry are summed up here: finding poetry manuscripts is easy, finding readers is another story. If all the circulation of poetry on the web does is produce more readers of poetry, that’s a not bad thing.

So rather than squabbling over illegal copies, if I were a poet, I’d be happy about the publicity. Maybe then I’d have some hopes of selling the 2500 copies of a book that will allow my publisher to break even.

The reality is that there was poetry before there was a market for poetry. We don’t all get to earn a living from our talents. Unless we become *popular* that is. Mary Oliver is already popular; she has the luxury of pouncing on those of us who circulate her poetry illegally. I’d never heard of Wendy Cope* before happening upon this article in the Guardian in which she argues, “You like my poems? Pay for them.” Cope makes some valid points, but there’s not much I agree with. What? We can’t read poems aloud at events without permission? Poetry needs, wants, and audience, and poetry, as I understand, is best read aloud. Here’s a great response, if not a rebuttal. A. E. Stallings envisions a future of “publishing without publishers.” Very cool.

* In fairness, Wendy Cope is one of the best-selling living poets in England, so this is a reflection on me, and my ignorance, not on her. Nevertheless, here I am, a reasonably educated American, and I hadn’t heard of one of Britain’s best poets, until I came across the Guardian article while researching copyright issues. Says something about the market for poetry, no?