Joseph Massey

Joe Masseyhas an interesting discussion of publishing on his blog.

I agree with the two or three comment-fielders who express frustration with the moralizing about "chapbooks." I can't stand that BS. And as I've written before on this blog, I'm very hesitant about idealizing "the community," a stifling paradigm that seems to go hand in hand with chapbook-moralizing.

I like chapbooks because they can do away with some of the gate-keeping that mostly allows only trite poetry books to be published (for financial reasons), but I can't stand the arts-and-craft moralizing of a lot of chapbooks discussions. As if intricately designing a chapbook somehow makes it morally superior (or less "alienated") than a regular book.

On the other hand, one of Joseph's comment-fielder argues that books should not be designed. Well, books are designed. Sorry. Of course, you can design them to look "undesigned", but that's an empty gesture.

Also, I get annoyed when someone criticizes others for publishing books. It takes *a lot* of time, effort etc.