May 2, 2015 from: Suzie P.

Dear Max tdc, I wasn’t able to determine from this post; are your concerns with the submitting “poets” or their “poetry’? Are these concerns a generalized issue or specifically with materials coming in for Cheap Seats?

Suzie P., Unfortunately a bit more complicated than either or. But first, let me assure you, how much I appreciate someone who isn’t afraid to step to the plate, and pitch the hardball questions…Thank you.

Etcetera, etcetera…

This particular post (yesterday, May 2) was most specifically directed at a trending type of material being received in the Ford van office…with a side-bar regarding those writers who are having difficulty, amongst other things, determining that 2-5/8 inches is a submittal dimension which we’re—let’s just say, stuck with. Cheap Seats is a narrow vertical format…imagine if you will, much like a newspaper column.

   Oh. Aren’t familiar with a newspaper? Sorry, then can’t help those writers.

The recent envelopes of material contain not only the usual interpretations of what a poem might have looked and sounded (yes, a poem has a certain rhythm and “sound” to it) like in the late eighteen hundreds (not saying most of the material is, not good, it is simply, dated) but many of the “poems” are coincidentally taking on content, width and formatting issues.

p.l., addressing these issues with the authors, as mentioned previously, much like dealing with stubborn private pre-school students, is usually getting either no response (which is a definitive direction for non-utilization of these works) or the ol’ brush-off. If an author would rather leave the grammatical, punctuation, syntactical (to name a few) or formatting as is, it then falls to our “editors” to determine what affect this particular presentation has on the overall piece, and whether or not the piece should simply be sidelined. Hint: we can be equally as lazy as some of these authors want to be…Hmmm?

The focus of Cheap Seats Ticket to Ride, is not to publish any-and-all materials that are slid under our door by the Postal delivery. Cheap Seats does not charge a “reading fee” yet we strive to incorporate new, interesting and cosmetically harmonious materials; materials showing each issue as a cohesive presentation. Cooperation is always appreciated. In the beginning, we determined, not, to alter any materials coming in—apparently some authors believing this is an open door policy to allow anything onto our pages. Although, these three curmudgeon-ally ol’ geeze “editors” strive to provide an actual ink and paper home for many works, as their authors perceived them…please, review what you read and submit accordingly.

In summary, Suzie P., it boils down to a “generalized issue” as well. If authors truly cared about the presentation and elevation of their works they would grasp opportunities to improve those works—not just shotgunning them into a publication for ego-gratification. But as long as schools and an entitlement pervasive society allows dithering fools to be pushed through the system, real-deal, want-to-be writers will never know what is actually expected, and will assume the basic slough they’ve been misled to believe is passable—even “outstanding”, this conversation will, then, continue until one no longer gives a mote. And that time seems just around the corner…

Max tdc