perspectives: publishers of african poetry and poets

In response to my earlier posting -- print and online publishers of poetry; of african poetry? -- Tolu Ogunlesi, one of our readers (and a working poet in his own right) sent a thoughtful response along with some specific suggestions that deserve a wider audience.

Ogunlesi writes:

Just came across this post on your blog, and thought I should share some of my personal experience.

In my opinion, writing in/from Africa is often a case of "All written up... nowhere to go."

Let me try to count the living (print) literary magazines I know of in Nigeria:

1. Farafina (they do not take unsolicited poetry)
2. Cavalcade (new journal published by the abuja writers' forum, I haven't even seen a copy yet)

Trying to think of more....

What you often have are poetry anthologies published by various writers' groups, not very well edited or printed. And then of course the newspapers, which often publish very bad poetry written by newspaper staff and the editors' friends.

Elsewhere in africa:

1. Chimurenga -- irregularly published
2. Kwani? -- same as Chimurenga

To some extent, poetry worldwide -- and writing in general -- is "All written up... nowhere to go." And much of it deserves to stay there: in notebooks, on scraps bundled in folders, floating around disjointedly in the mind. (Much like most of my own poetic "production".) But Ogunlesi's larger point, on the troubles of publishing in Africa and finding outlets beyond Africa (from a home base on the Continent), are both well taken, and well documented; and as Ogunlesi reaffirms in painful detail, it is very much a matter of access.

Most of my own submissions go to Europe (the UK esp) and America. I have had poems published in Magma (UK), Sable (UK), Stanford's Black Arts Quarterly (US), Pyramid (US), Birmingham Arts Journal (US), and have 3 poems in the current edition of World Literature Today.

It helps that a lot of these journals accept emailed submissions. It'd be too much of a bother to have to snail-mail stuff, what with the unavailability of IRCs in Nigeria, and with the generally inefficient postal services.

These days, one of the most important considerations guiding what American or British mags I submit to is medium of submission - email or nothing.

It certainly seems to me that regardless of the "worth" of any particular scribblings, poets working in Nigeria, Kenya, the United States, New Guinea, Belize... should have access to outlets. Not a mandate. Not a right. But a wish.

To be honest, its tough to break into the literary journal market abroad. It's hard enough for residents of these countries, doubly hard for an "outsider".

But I have chosen to press on. The internet be praised!

Indeed. It's certainly not easy. And it's certainly not fair that by pure accident of birth it's a hell of a lot easier for me to ship off and hear back from publishers than it is for Ogunlesi. But we all press on.

As he continued in a subsequent email:

Truth is every now and then I get emails and questions from young Nigerian writers (I'm one myself!) saying "I'm a poet, I want to publish my work, what should I do?"

First thing I do is sigh... and then I start my footnoted treatise on the phenomenon called the "internet"...

And I am personally thankful that folks like Ogunlesi do press on.

My thanks to Tolu for his thoughts. For those of you following along, here are links to the publications mentioned above.

• Birmingham Arts Journal
• Black Arts Quarterly
• Cavalcade (call for submissions and a write-up in the Daily Sun)
  
• Chimurenga
• Farafina
• Kwani?
  
• Magma
• Pyramid
• Sable Lit Mag
  
• World Literature Today

And you can read more from Tolu Ogunlesi on his blog. Good luck to everyone!

Addendum (14 February 2010): Aernout Zevenbergen has written an interesting piece on The Art of Self-Publishing on the Book SA website. Zevenbergen is reflecting on the publication of his book (rather than seeking publication in journals) but the challenges faced and lessons learned are, I think, worth sharing in the context of this discussion.

another update on the best african poetry 2009

So, what is to be done? Well, here's the situation:

I have received a large number of really excellent work -- from across the Continent -- to consider for The Best African Poetry 2009. But I'm greedy. I want more. And from more places.

So, once again I'm extending the deadline. And for good or ill, it's an open deadline. At some point I'll shut it down. I will try to give ample warning and send out a last call, but there are no guarantees. I would still like to have the final publication ready for the African Literature Association conference (mid-April this year) but I'm not going to rush things. I want to make sure that the quality of the poetry included and the actual publication itself is top flight.

I will be reading and making decisions on all the submissions received to date over the course of the next 3 weeks. So if you have submitted poetry for consideration, expect to hear from me in the coming weeks.

I will also be embarking on (another) publicity blitz -- spreading the word and the call. Any help you can give in this regard -- sending links to friends and colleagues, posting information about this on your favorite (relevant) website or blog, tweating about it -- will, of course, be greatly appreciated.

For those of you who thought you missed the deadline, are coming across this for the first time, or have just read something published in 2008 that you think is just the best, and should be recognized as such, review the initial call and send along your nomination/s as soon as possible!

And, of course, if you have any questions or suggestions, email me.

print and online publishers of poetry; of african poetry?

A reader sent me a request that I'm afraid I wasn't able to answer very well -- and around an issue that has been one of my challenges in combing out The Best African Poetry 2009: who are some reputable publishers -- both print and online -- of poetry, of individual poems and cycles (not collections)?

So we're side-stepping book publishers for the moment and looking for magazines and (little) journals.

Well, really, I think he meant publishers of "African poetry"... More on that later.

There are, of course, the various African and Africa-focused publications, the big ones of the moment: Chimurenga, Farafina, and Kwani? come to mind.

Where I see the greatest activity at the moment, though, is over at African Writing -- which seems to have become the publisher of African poetry. A visit to the AW website is one where you're never more than a click away from verse.

One thing that the initial review of nominations for The Best... has shown me though is that "African" poetry is published everywhere. Borders and definitions don't mean all that much anymore, at least when it comes to publishing. Stop. Let's reconsider: in one sense they mean everything, in that they too often define access, and far too many African poets -- by dint of circumstances though not because of any "African"-ness -- lack access. But for those who have, can finagle, or afford access, I think the best bet, especially for poets just beginning to explore options for publication, is to go local or go global.

You're probably well aware of the local options (which obviously vary country to country, city to city -- and by local I mean, in most instances, at the city & state/province level). Then look nationally -- major metropolitan centers, national universities. Then... Well, hell, the sky is the limit.

Of course, that doesn't help much, does it? Get online. Start reading the poets' blogs and essentially reverse engineer the trail of publication. Poets -- writers in general -- are not shy about posting information on where they've been published. Reading a Nigerian poet's blog? She's posted two or three poems that have been published in journals, maybe one in South Africa, one in the UK, and one in the United States? Well, there you go: three possible outlets right there. (Google the names of those who have commented on this blog -- more than a few poets among them.)

Hell, and if you can get ahold of some recent copy of the Poet's Market books, all the better (it does not need to be the latest).

All the standard caveats apply: try to review a few issues before submitting to see if you're a good fit, respect submission guidelines, etc. And then start submitting. And as far as what's reputable goes, just be careful: no money should trade hands, print publication should at least get you a copy of the journal, there ought to be some clearly stated editorial review process for submissions (if someone just cuts and pastes your poem to a website a day after it's submitted that probably hardly counts as "publication" -- though perhaps I'm just a dinosaur in that regard), etc & et al.

Couple side-notes of some related interest. At some point down the line -- though this is probably down the line quite a ways -- we might very well begin publishing original verse here, or through some related projects I'm working on. But that's a ways off. Still, keep an eye open. And once we get The Best... compiled and published you'll also want to review that: prior places of publication will be noted for each poem.

But, of course, the best source is going to be the readers here. So...

Here's another call to readers: where do you send poetry for publication? Leave a comment or send me an email with your suggestions. We'll see if we can't get something of a list going here after all.

Read the reaction and thoughts of one of apr-usa's Nigerian readers -- Tolu Ogunlesi -- in a follow-up posting. (Updated 6 March 2009)