My first foray into the world of becoming a published poet, was strictly in the hand of my local newspaper. Luckily for me, they published the first four poems that I ever wrote. Or, I should say that I intentionally wrote. I had scibbled with the odd line for years. Mostly random thoughts in a journal.

The second time, I actually went through a submittal process with Sky Line Poetry. I submitted four poems. They printed one. I was pretty excited about that. I was asked to submit more work for a Pushcart nomination. Unfortunately for me, I had a serious health crisis that happened at the same time.

The third time, I contacted a small press in Albuquerque, NM. After a series of phone calls and e-mails, I submitted 20 poems. On an afternoon's whim, I sent one more poem in. That was the piece they choose to print. It will be available on Feb. 15Th 2007 through New Mexico Poetry Tangents...The issue is called : Earth ships, an anthology of New Mexico Poetry/Poets.

My point in writing this is to point out the strange attractors or random chance if you will, of finding a place that likes your poetry enough to want to print it. In the coming months and even years, I hope that we as a community can build such a site, that we can take some of those random factors out.

I hope that we will in the future, keep lists of editors, publishers, agents. Small, medium, and large publishing houses that are in search of new voices. But, at this current juncture in time, if you want to be published you need to do all the work. There are no short cuts, or lessening of the length of road you will have to travel.

My suggestions are: A) Stay away from vanity presses. They only want the money you can give them. (Discuss this with Mark. He will relate you his tales of self-publishing.) B) search the inter-net, and local libraries for listings of small presses. C) Attend as many poetry/writing seminars and writing support groups as are in your local area. Also AOL has a very lively but, close knit on-line writing community. Several tips they have passed on to me have directly translated to my poetry. D) Getting published is an exercise in tenacity. The exact parameters for getting published as a writer of say fiction, apply to a poet as well. Eventually, when you have created a body of work that has been at least peer-reviewed or edited by a third party, start searching for an agent. Meanwhile, while submitting your work to as many presses as will continue to take your mail.

I humbly offer this as my opinion only. But as my opinion, I hope that it helps those that are serious as I am about becoming a better published poet.

David S Baker