Great poem! I find it very difficult to write rhyming poems that are as lengthy as this one! One little annoyance though, your line, "You really never thought you had" strikes me as having too many syllables. (Sorry to be such a nitpicker - I hope you don't mind). The rest of the poem flowed perfectly though!

No, I'm not a sales rep! You said that "clearly you haven't done your research"... well, actually I have! My facts are 100% correct! I have first hand experience self publishing with Lulu.com! And, the prices I cited are accurate to the cent! I personally think that the self publishing industry is helpful to people who don't want to shop their books around to publishers and potentially face dozens if not hundreds of rejections. Self publishing offers a quick and easy solution to the question of "how do I get my work out there?" - self publishing is book publishing for the small guy! Not everyone has the talent or the marketing skills or the luck or the time to land a "real" book deal! One writer's biggest dream may be to see their book for sale at a local bookstore. Or maybe they'd like to see their novel available at their library! If so, then self publishing is a viable option! Anybody anywhere can self publish ANYTHING nowadays - anything from mugs to T-shirts to cd's to books to comic books or stickers - it's a testament to the technological progress that has been made in the last 15 years. For $8 I can print one copy of a professional quality book, or for $8 I could buy grilled chicken Caesar salad at the local pizza joint. Book or salad... it's a hard choice, eh? Print on demand technology has revolutionized the self publishing industry by making it possible to print as few or as many books as are needed without any upfront costs! With Print on Demand technology there is no need to print 1000 books (which may inevitably end up collecting dust in some old warehouse or whatever) in order to see your book in print. Don't feel bad that you weren't aware of the benefits of Print on Demand technology... it's not really common knowledge yet, because it's so new. I suggest that you do a wikipedia search for "print on demand books" so that we can end this discussion on a note of mutual understanding and empathy. You may be surprised by the fact that I'm not just blowing hot air out my you know what. Anyway, that's all I've got - I hope you understand!

I need to tell you that there is no cost whatsoever in publishing a book at LULU.com. If I want to create a book and buy one copy, then I will upload my file, and pay $8.50 for my copy (or whatever the printing cost is). There are no "start-up fees"! Or I could create the book, and make it available free for download - and that would be totally free for everyone involved! The point is that thousands of dollars would NOT be spent creating a LULU book. The only money that anybody would spend would be on their own personal book copies, which incidentally, poets could mark up and sell for whatever they wanted to sell them for. You are right that it is vanity publishing! But, you are wrong that there are costs involved other than paying reasonable prices for solid products. Also, it wouldn't be "self publishing" for most of the poets in the collection, considering the fact that they would not actually be the ones publishing the collection. That's a technicality though. But, on the other hand, Lulu.com is a self-publishing company - I know, I know, I'm full of contradictions :)

Speaking of contradictions, I guess I could have been a little more thorough in my explanation of the proof reading situation. Although I spell-check (on my computer) the documents that I self publish, I always give the final proof to my Mom to go over just to double check for mistakes that the computer and I missed. I'm sorry for not having been exactly clear about the situation. My bad. Frankly, I trust my Mom to find mistakes better than me or my computer. She's intelligent is all...

Here are the pros and cons of making a collection through Lulu.com (as I see them):

Pros:

1) Poets will see their work published somewhere other than the forum, and these poets will be able to site this collection as a place they've been published before. (don't roll your eyes just because it's a "vanity press"!) For all you and I know, some of the poets in this collection may never have seen their work in print, and maybe being published this will spark a passion in them to seek out other venues for their poems to be showcased - maybe even earning money doing so! Seeking and searching are good things I must say ;)

2) The collection will be available in print (for the cost price) and will be downloadable for free.

3) The collection won't cost a cent to create.

4) The collection will be for sale through the Lulu.com website (but frankly, don't expect many sales to people who don't personally know the poets contained in the collection).

Cons:

1) Nobody will be paid for their work, unless they sell their own personal copies for profit.

2) Somebody has to wade through a lot of poetry on this site to "collect" the material for the collection. That somebody also has to get permission to use the poetry from each poet, and this takes time.

3) Marketing costs money, so this collection won't be marketed, so the only notable sales will be to ourselves or to direct acquaintances. In other words, these collections will be about as popular as your average chapbook - multiplied by as many poets who are included in the collection.

These are all the pros and cons I can think of right now. Based on logic alone, I think the pros out way the cons, so I think the idea of publishing a collection using Lulu.com has some merit.

It's been an interesting dialog. Thanks for your consideration.

I just realized something stupid... last night a lady messaged me that she'd like to help with "editing" and/or "proof-reading" for the collection. I suggested to her that she could help out by proof reading, but now that I'm thinking about it, maybe she could help with the editing, too. The point is that nothing is set in stone yet. Good, now I'm going to get my breakfast and a haircut :)

I see what you're saying. I may not be the right person to edit this collection. Do you have anybody else in mind who you feel would do a better job? My last collection of poetry cost $8.68 per unit and was 127 pages long. That price was set at the minimum printing cost. I could have marked the price up to any amount of money that I wanted to, but because it was essentially a chapbook (albeit a high quality chapbook), and the goal wasn't to make money, I opted to put the printed magazine for sale at cost. It is also free for download, even though I could have set that price at anything, too. My Mom did the final spell-checking for it, because maybe you haven't noticed yet (because I've been improving), but I'm definitely not the best speller out there. If by your logic we were to look at peoples experience in the publishing field as the only qualifying characteristic when choosing "editors", then my Mom shouldn't have spell checked the magazine. But, if we were to evaluate her on her top-notch spelling, then she was a great candidate to do the job. I appreciate your honesty that you think that my attitude is presumptuous. To be blunt, I'm open to using a more qualified editor for this project! There's no argument that I'm not a seasoned veteran when it comes to publishing. At the same time, I do have a little experience, which I am glad to share with anybody who wants it. I do think it's a good idea to put together a collection of poetry written by the poets at this site (with their permission of course). I like to be involved in projects like this, because I get a good feeling of seeing projects through from start to finish. And, I have a fair amount of time on my hands,so it just makes sense that I suggested that I could do the "editing". It didn't occur to me that anybody would call me presumptuous for offering to put together a collection of poetry here (or ever). It may seem kind of stupid to you since you've been published, but I truly feel that a lot of poets would jump at the chance to be published in a collection like this, because it would look good on their resume. ha ha. Well, maybe not, but I still think they would be happy to contribute.

If you or someone else that you know would prefer to do the editing and you (or they) are more qualified than I am (and are willing to work for free like I was planning on doing), and if you feel like this project has potential, then I hope you won't hesitate to come on board and help make this happen. I'd like to be a part of the project in some way, even if it's just to set up the finished document on Lulu.com or to help seek out potentially publishable poetry to be included in the collection. I like the name: The Mingle Poetry Collection. But, names can be changed. And, so can attitudes.

I wish you would look at Chaplin's Magazine, because don't think you would be so critical of my "editing" if you did. The fact that we could put together a quality collection of Mingle poetry seems really neat to me, and I hope that you aren't too mad at me for having even brought it up :(

Yes, I posted an ad here about how some magazines will not publish previously published poetry. The overwhelming response to that ad was that most people don't care about being published in magazines. As far as editing goes, correct me if I'm wrong, but spelling typos are annoying! When I said I was going to edit the poems, what I meant was that I would choose which ones to include in the collection and I'd put them in some kind of order. And, I'd correct any typos (with permission of course!). I would NOT change the content of the work! For instance, some poets choose not to add punctuation to their work. I would not add punctuation to it! But if somebody spelled "too" like "to" when it should have been "too" I would make them aware of their mistake, and with their permission, I'd publish the corrected version. As far as my qualifications go, I have a lot of experience self publishing with Lulu.com, and I self published a collection of poetry this year called Chaplin's Magazine, which I mentioned above. You can download the magazine for free and see for yourself what my "editing" work is like. I have a few poems in Chaplin's Magazine, but the majority of the poems were written by friends of mine at various open mics around Chester County. All of the photos are mine except for the portrait of me (which is also my portrait on this site). When I posted the idea for a collection here yesterday I just wanted to see if there would be any interest in it. I didn't expect a flame war. I like doing creative projects, and I thought that helping Mingle poets showcase their poetry in print would be a worthwhile cause. If I go forward with this project, there would be no monetary reward for me - just the satisfaction of being part of a fun project. I didn't mean to offend anyone by insinuating that bad spellers are bad poets or something like that. If your honest opinion is that I'm being judgemental, then I'm glad that you're being honest. Maybe you won't judge me so harshly next time...

There's a big difference between careless spelling mistakes and purposeful spelling liberties. I feel that careless spelling mistakes shouldn't make it into print - that's just me though. I hope that makes sense...

Hmm... a motion detector, eh!? I don't think that would work, since I have groundhogs in my backyard, too! Actually, the groundhog population has been dying down a bit ever since the hobos started coming around. Yah, groundhog roasts are becoming the norm in my backyard! (and I'm never invited!). Frankly, I'd rather have a groundhog infestation than hobos any day! I wish Wanda was still around! Oh... Misty water colored memories...

Hey, I'm new to this website, but an idea occurred to me just now while I was looking at the forum! I have a lot of experience using LULU.com and I have a lot of spare time right now, so it occured to me that I could easily put together a collection of poems by the poets here. As the editor, I wouldn't change the poems in any way, except to point out spelling and/or punctuation errors, but I would be in charge of choosing which poems would be included in the final product. Photos and artwork would also be fun to include in this collection! I created the first issue of a magazine called Chaplin's Magazine this year using LULU.com, and it turned out great! The magazine included poetry written by my friends from various open mics around Chester County, PA, as well as portrait shots that I took of them. The link is: http://www.lulu.com/content/1546905
Would any of you be interested in being part of a project like this? At this point, I'd just like to see if there's any interest out there. Ask your poet friends about it, too!

These were hilarious! I want to read more!

Some feedback...

"alternately in ink, fingerpaint, pepper sauce, and frosting"
-I think you should break this line into two lines so that the overall look of your poem is consistent. This line looks too long. It's a great poem though!

Hey, I'd like to give you some feedback about your poem...

The line, "looking for a nouny place to exist". - I don't think this works - it sounds too light-hearted for the context. I think that if you're going to make up a word, then you should try to keep it within the flavor of the line.

The line, "If he holds the brush lightly He can glide it over,ignoring the lines (Watch the lines)... -very good use of parenthesis! I like it!

The line, "...and that pure, piaster of paint..." - is that a typo? Did you mean to write "plaster of paint?"

This is a beautiful poem. I'm looking forward to reading more of your work!

My rambling days are over, but the hobos around here are driving me WONKERS! You probably know the type - they look just like your average everyday kind of bum - with they're knapsacks slung over their shoulders and them hopping trains in and out of town. Well, my shack is located right beside the main train line into town right before the station, and those freaking hobos have been train jumping right into my back-yard ever since my pit bull Wanda passed on! Grrrr! And, they love to set up their little hobo shelters here without a word of permission from yours truly! They won't even share there pork and beans with me or invite me to their marshmallow roasts! Darn hobos have NO CONSIDERATION! (No offense to hobos). Also, they eat my carrots.
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This has been today's Stupidville Chronicles... Check back tomorrow for my newest installment.

I think Wonderbread's emoticons are probably funnier than my magical armpits, but let's just keep that to ourselves, kay?!

I've used Lulu.com for a bunch of things, and I like it a lot. The prices seem to have gone up a little bit there, but they're still pretty good. One thing that I like about LULU.com is that they let me make my music available to my friends for free. I just send my friends links to my songs, and they can download my songs for free! That's pretty convenient! I've never used Createspace.com, but they look about the same as Lulu.com. Back to the original topic though, keep in mind that when you self publish with Lulu.com it may still interfere with your chance of being published by certain magazines! As a poet, I want to share my work with people and get feedback and whatnot, but I don't want to ruin my chances of being published in magazines - the only way to have a book of my poetry published (other than self publishing it - which is pretty limited in scope) is to build a portfolio of published poetry - and I really really want to have a book of my poetry published someday! It's all very frustrating,and to top if off, I often feel like my poetry sucks (even though I labor over it obsessively)... yeah it's very discouraging!

Whenever I feel down on myself for being such a serious fuddy duddy, I just lift up my arms and remember my armpits. To the best of my knowledge, nobody else has such magical armpits as I. They are never deodorized with vulgar scents like Old Spice or Rite Guard - such masks would only detract. Many men wish they had armpits like mine, but they will have to wait. Heck, I'm just gifted at armpittedness. If I walk past your area and you smell something splendid - it's your lucky day - it's my gift to you. If you hear bells chiming and see doves flying forth from my armpits - it's my armpits being happy! When you see/hear/smell/touch/taste my armpits you're being touched by the Spirit. I just want to give a shout-out to Wally and his wife for being there when I built my first horse fence. Thanks Wally and June! This ad is for real. Okay, it's not, but I guess you figured that out by now anyway, right?! This has been an installment of my Stupidville Chronicles. More later!

Yah, the Poets Market is handy, but I must admit that I was a bit disappointed when I tried to submit my poems and discovered that a fair number of the e-mail addresses and/or websites weren't active anymore. I thought it would be a cinch to get SOMETHING published since there are tons of small zines and things like that listed, but so far I haven't had any luck with it. But, then again, I've only tried submitting about 8 poems so far... Hmmm...

According to the 2008 Poets Market, many publications will not publish poetry that has previously been published, and that includes online sites like this one! I stopped blogging my own poetry after I read that, because I'd like to see my poetry in print someday. It seems to me that most folks don't care about being published in magazines or whatever, but if you are the exception, then I'd suggest that you take a look at the Poets Market and refrain from prematurely publishing your poetry on the internet. Anyway, I just thought I'd put that out there...