ajodasso

My head exploded last night, hence the need to play catch-up.

What, for you, is the purpose of poetry? Why do you read it? Why do you write it? Why do you publish it, and how do you choose where to publish?
—not_vacillating

When I first started writing at the age of thirteen (late bloomer, by most standards; nearly all my friends who write say they were composing stories or verse as early as kindergarten), it was all verse and no prose except when I was writing essays for school.  Poetry was, to my perception, writing at its pinnacle of expression: concise, cutting, and spectacular given how much it could convey in such limited space on the page.  To me, poetry is necessary—the written distillation of our most immediate, urgent, and visceral experiences.  At its best, poetry should function like music (specific enough to grab our attention, yet universal enough for anyone to read into it what they wish).  I don't self-publish poetry except when I post locked drafts to this blog, so I can't answer that part of your question until such time as I become a publisher; however, what determines where I submit my work is a combination of factors.  Like so many people who find themselves classed as speculative, I seem to be one of those writers whose work rarely fares well when submitted to "mainstream" venues, but who has fared exceedingly well in the past decade when submitted to SF/F/Spec markets (to the point, of course, where I eventually ended up on staff at Strange Horizons).  Ultimately, what determines whether I'll send my work somewhere is whether I enjoy the publication or not.

Your favorite foreign-language phrases and why you like them so much?
—speccygeekgrrl

Nie mój cyrk, nie moje małpy (Polish: Not my circus, not my monkeys).  I love that phrase to death, not least because it's extremely snarky.  As a longtime francophile, I'm extremely fond of Qu'est-ce que c'est? as an interrogative.  It trips pleasingly off the tongue.