12.6.09

Hence shall we see, if power change purpose, what our seemers be.

Big problem:

I can no longer post poetry.

The reason?

Policies like this, which are not uncommon for 'first serial rights' submissions:

"Work that has appeared online is considered to have been previously published and should not be submitted."

Facing this realization has caused me not to want to post at all. If I can't post my own poetry for fear that it'll get crawled and archived, and thus be available 'on the internet' for all time, how can I feel free to post anything at all?

How can I share my work with my friends and loved ones if I can't physically give it to them, and cannot post it somewhere?

And further, where does a policy like this stop? "[H]as appeared online" is incredibly vague -- obviously publishing on a serious website would be a problem, but this idea encompasses more than that. This blog has incredibly low traffic (I've been tracking it, it's pitiful), but still counts. If I upload things to dropbox, are they "online"? How about an even more ubiquitous example: can I even use GoogleDocs to type up my work?