About Self Published Poetry

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My friend @Rollo1 asked in a discussion about writing a book as she knows many who have. She has written poetry, and short things, but not a book. Here is her post It inspired me to tell about these two books of poetry. Lately I have had some experience with self published poetry books. I found one on my bookshelf that I had emptied. It was by a young twenty something man that I know. Well, he is thirty something now. His wife did a nice cover for him. His poetry reads more like essays, nothing very poetic, and filled with sympathy for those who have been troubled as he has. I know the young man and some of the challenges he has overcome. They did not try to sell the book, only gave it to friends hoping to be a blessing.I used to entertain myself writing that type of essay. Yesterday Charlotte, my dad's wife, a very sharp 95 year old woman handed me a little booklet. It was a book of poems written by her deceased nephew. Price listed in back was $5, but I sense that they brought a bunch of them to give away to family members at a recent wedding, or funeral, because they cannot get rid of them. Charlotte's comment about this book was that these were just words, kind of strung together, but that they just did not make sense to her. She thought maybe she was dumb. She is smart as a tack. It is "modern poetry" and there was not really much there that I could make sense of either. Yes, there was an occasional evocative phrase, but there was much missing from line to line. I was a fan of ee cummings in high school. I "got" his poetry. I did not "get" this. I write poetry. My best stuff in recent years was written while I was recovering from surgery and taking pain meds. I have not tried to self publish and the last few days convinces me that I do not have enough good material on hand to write a book. That does not mean that you should not. It might be fun.