“Yes, own the fact that you are a poet.” – dimitrireyespoet.com
When I first started my MFA program, I quickly started a slight obsession with submitting because everyone else in the program was. I didn’t stop to realize that my colleagues were at different points in their writing career than I was and I had yet to discover that each writer has their own path. It wasn’t until another MFA candidate who is now a dear friend of mine said, “you have to ask yourself why you are submitting. Submitting shouldn’t be more important than writing” that I discovered that I was thinking about it all wrong. Technically, I didn’t even know why I was submitting beyond the fact that my community was so with this blog I hope to give you some direction. Whenever the moment calls for it, I tell my YouTube audience and students to submit because of one reason or another. To simplify my longer explanations, here are 6 Reasons you should Publish Your Poems.
1. Professional Validation
Yes, own the fact that you are a poet. This is important to how you identify as the writer. What will happen in conversation (if the person you are speaking to is at least a fraction interested) is that they’ll ask where they can find your work. Now you can pull out a bunch of writing on napkins from your back pocket— that works. But if you want more curb appeal, it’d be best if you could professionally point them to a journal or magazine on print or online. (Though print publications are great and some of the most prestigious journals still print their issues, I prefer the online publication because of accessibility.)
2. Publications Are Writer’s Credentials
Once you have been publishing and appearing in several locations, you are beginning to develop a paper (or interweb) trail. This shows that your work has been through a competitive sorting among other work, and was picked out of a stack of poems as the best work that was submitted. When being considered for certain jobs, gigs, or other publications, it is a possibility that your publication history will be used to weigh your potential.
3. Some Publications Pay
Some publishing outlets will PAY to publish YOUR poems! Of course, you will have to research which ones that pay their authors and many of them ask for submission fees (which helps to pay out the artists.) Other ways that you can be “compensated” for your publications are through “comp copies” meaning that if it’s a print journal you get accepted to, upon publication you will receive a complimentary copy of the book you had your work in. Ahhhh, it’s a great moment when you open a new journal and your name is in the table of contents! It gets me every time!
4. Publications Create Community
Upon publication, you will be grouped with a collection of other writers who also got their work accepted and you’ll notice that there will be similarities between you and them. This isn’t by accident. Each journal is a conglomerate of interests and tonalities that editors focus on compiling effectively so that each journal is an experience. It’s always good to see who else is published around you and study why there work was also validated as yours was. I’ve made many friends by reaching out to a poet I shared a website or pages in a journal with to let them know that I appreciated their work. Poets are poet’s biggest fans because we understand each other on a deeper level than the poetry reader. These relationships are great to have in terms of networking and forming bonds in your writing career.
5. Publications Build Your Audience
After sharing your work with your family, friends, and colleagues, it is time to grow your audience beyond those close connections. Yes, there are readers out there looking to connect with you! And you get to make the connection by publishing in spaces that have poetry readers. The best feelings are when you get contacted by a stranger that found your work compelling. This WILL happen.
6. You ARE Worth Hearing
In a divine way, these poems are coming to us. While we’re sitting in traffic, washing dishes, bathing, watching tv— at any point in time we can get a line of poetry and we open up our notebook and record that moment. No one else is going to get that same line and it is your responsibility to write it down and produce. I’m positive someone else needs to hear your words.
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