Fineart Forum and F.A.S.T.: Experiments in Electronic Publishing in the Arts

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The poetry conference was established in reaction against these and other drawbacks of conventional poetry workshops. Poets write from diverse backgrounds and disciplines, but the one thing they have in common is the need to know right away if they have hit the mark or missed it entirely. The poetry conference provides this kind of accessibility. The poet, equipped with a personal computer, modem and telecommunications software package, accesses the host computer and logs onto the system by typing his or her user ID and password. Once these have been verified, the host system displays an entry prompt. The poet need only type the command 'g poet' in order to be transferred into the poetry conference. From a list of topics, the poet selects a subject for reading and/or responding. He or she has the option of typing a response directly from the computer keyboard or sending a prepared poem or document via the telecommunications package. Quite often feedback will begin coming in from other poets throughout the country within 24 hours, while the poet is still in the midst of appraising the poem or project. Another advantage to this electronic-workshop method is that the author has the benefit of gathering responses from poets nationwide to gain a better perspective of the poem's accessibility to a broader audience. This not only saves time but provides additional inspiration to the poet to continue the work. The online poetry conference extends even farther beyond the customary workshop/seminar by providing the poet with a forum for informal exchanges as well as critiquing of poems. Evaluations of the strengths and weaknesses of accomplished poets, lists of favorite poetry books, references for poesy and poetic terms, fundamentals for reading to an audience, and the political value of poetry in society are only a sampling of subjects that are available to the poet online. Perhaps the best feature of all is that this arena, spawned by the high-tech industry, allows the poet to gain perspectives and make contact with people and poetry around the world on the poet's traditional meager budget.