Funny thing happened yesterday. A poet whose work we’d published in the current issue of KR sent an email enquiring whether we’d agreed to have her poem appear on Verse Daily.
Nope. It was news to me.
And the more we looked into it, the more troubling the news became.
Now, I’ve never paid a lot of attention to Verse Daily. That’s through no fault of theirs, just the limits of my time and patience. As far as I could tell, they were just a website trying to piggy-back on the success of Poetry Daily, posting a new poem every day, one that had been published in a literary journal or new book. Lots of people visit these sites, and that’s a great, good thing as far as I’m concerned. The more readers actively seeking out poetry in our benighted world the better.
Poetry Daily–them I know. And they’re very careful. They always get an author’s approval before posting a poem. Letting KR know–that’s just a courtesy. But they do that too.
Literary journals typically contract with an author for “First North American Serial Rights.” That means the right to publish a work for the first time in a journal or magazine, something other than a book. After publication the copyright reverts to the author. In other words, authors control what happens to their work. And that’s as it should be.
Copyright has always been subject to violation, of course, and the Internet only makes pilfering a lot easier. But copyright still legally applies: an author should still be able to say who, when, and where his poem or her story is published, whether there’s a payment involved, and so on.
Money matters, naturally. But it’s not the only criterion. The poet who contacted us yesterday simply prefers not to appear on Verse Daily. She admits it’s no big deal. But how easy it is to imagine your work appearing someplace not so innocent, or distorted in the process, or used in some way that you as the author–and owner–find offensive.
The point is the Verse Daily editors didn’t bother to ask. When Meg Galipault, KR’s managing editor, contacted them to find out what was going on, they pleaded lack of staff and money and fulltime jobs. They clearly see their labors as noble. Here’s part of their response:
“We work full time in regular jobs in addition to providing the public service that is Verse Daily, so our time is very very limited while our tasks are many. This is why our submission guidelines are worded they way they are. We are sorry if you are unhappy with our efforts to increase exposure to authors and magazines. Certainly we do what we do in order to assist you, not hurt you. We hope you understand how difficult it is for us to continue doing this important work with such a small staff and with virtually no outside help in funds or otherwise, and how this is why we must operate as outlined in our guidelines. Always feel free, however, to let us know if a particular author does NOT wish to appear in Verse Daily.”
Yeah, well, how are we to advise them if we don’t know in advance (or even after the fact) that they intend to post a poem?
Am I getting unduly exercised over a minor transgression? Well maybe. As I said above, I’ve got nothing against Verse Daily in general. They’re fighting the good fight along with the rest of us. I suspect their hearts are in the right place.
But the principle of getting an author’s permission to publish his or her work is no little thing. It goes to the heart of the literary enterprise. Yes, it’s a bit of a hassle. Sorry.