POETIC SYNERGY

by Leigh Lundin

One of my tertiary characters was a noir poet who reads poetry over the radio. As such, she devises poems suitable to her dark personality, and so I attempted to draw upon my sophomore poetry class to cobble a poem or two together. It occurred to me afterwards that I could have saved a lot of agony and grief if I simply had a real poet write what I needed. Fiction authors are expected to be skilled wordsmiths, but trained poets are masters of the word. But where to find such a poetic asset?

My favorite aunt, Rachel Kemper, was a popular professor of art and art history at FIT in New York. Once, when I needed artwork for a project but had next-to-no budget, she suggested I sponsor a contest for art students. The nominal prize money was not the most important incentive, she advised, but the working credit on their resume would be invaluable.

So, I wondered, if such a credit would be worthwhile to an artist, surely a hand-up to a poet or a song writer struggling to be published might be just as valuable? As discussed at the MWA, fiction writers make as little as 10¢ on the dollar compared to non-fiction authors, so the majority of writers don’t have monetary largess to spread around. But we do have an audience. Poets often have neither. The wonderful mystery writer Jeremiah Healy wrote that song writing is “the only way in this great land of ours to get paid for writing poetry.” (“Makin’ Up and Breakin’ Up”, Ellery Queen, August 2007)

Routinely, we credit doctors, lawyers, and Indian chiefs for their professional advice, so why not help discover a poet or composer?

Spread the Love

Pitfalls abound, of course: What happens if the contributor abruptly concluded that their poem was the real money maker of the publication? What if the contributor thought they deserved their name on the cover? What if, after the fact, they demanded additional compensation? Publishers, doubtlessly, would justifiably cringe without an indemnification and the blessings of six attorneys. Afterwards, one of the above-mentioned lawyers will criticize the party of the first part for having a poorly worded agreement with the party of the second part.

Quite a different problem could arise if, say, an author’s in-laws insisted their favorite nephew’s rap lyrics, “Roses bleed Red, Violence be Bluish”, would be ideal, when even your tone-deaf ear recognized little Jimmy LL7’s masterpiece fell short of literary genius. Win, draw, or lose, even a third party judge couldn’t dent the simmering undercurrents of subsequent Thanksgiving dinners.

These aren’t unexpected questions, and no doubt writers can conceive of several more. Perhaps, though, we might find a way to resolve issues to everyone’s benefit.

Returning to Jerry Healy for a moment, he preaches from the pulpit of success that writers must help each other. Few authors have say over artwork associated with their novels, but we could find ourselves in a position of helping a fellow scribbler obtain a publishing credit.

If we could find a way to make it a win-win.

Blog Bytes

In the September/October 2007 issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Bill Crider in ‘Blog Bytes’ leads his list of ‘group blogs’ with CriminalBrief.com. That’s a great honor! His own popular blog can be found at http://billcrider.blogspot.com/, the Pop Culture Magazine.