1. n. Policeman's cant; the deceased body of one ejected through the windshield of an automobile (or windscreen, chiefly British) involved in a collision; applies to the corpse as a whole or any of its detached parts. Ex: "What have we got?" "A splence, 35, caucasian, a real mess. Sgt Marson has the head..."
2. n. A contorted, bouncy gait. Ex: "What's with the splence? Did you lose your bicycle seat again?"
3. n. A two-headed hammer with a trailing claw that is affixed by a decorative ribbon or braid at the base of the handle; used as part of jocular ceremony to indicate the rank of a Poet.
4. v.t. To make a smooshy, jelly sound when falling, crashing or making a hard impact.5. v.t. To be jilted; to be bested in an amorous conflict. Ex: "I wouldn't talk to Rodney, he was splenced by Udina at lunch."
In this blog's terms, specifically applied, Splence Press is a publishing press not so much in factory but in the spirit of independent thinking, a fraternity of sorts with self-publishers like Walt Whitman and William Blake who recognized that traditional publishing cannot serve all of the Art's needs and the individual artist is the best driver of innovation. It is very obvious that innovation in poetry is constrained by market forces and as such, the scope of poetry is shrinking to a few similar voices. Because the margins for poetry are so small, many publishers cannot take financial risks with unknown commodities, either unrecognized authors or approaches to poetry that are contrary to the prevailing styles. This, however, breeds in turn a malaise within the industry, both in terms of a disinterested reading public who has low expectations, if any, and a pool of new authors who write in the same styles as successful writers, knowing what the industry can tolerate. Without risk, imagination or innovation, financial margins do not improve, the incestuous process is self-fulfilling and spins eternally the loop of safe choices and small losses.
We are in an exciting time when it comes to publishing and putting work out there. Print-on-Demand (POD) publishers like CreateSpace and Lulu do a great job of providing professional, low-cost services that open up the market to independent voices while providing a very environmentally sound and economically sensible distribution program that avoids the problems that come with warehousing or margin management (since a book is only created when requested by purchase). It is true that POD also opens the market to poets who have little skill or imagination (a product of the program of validation that comes with treating poetry not as a craft, like operatic singing or ballet, but as a democratic privilege that is anti-academic, anti-elite and not Darwinian. In arguing against a canon, they begin with the premise that poetry can have limitless interpretation (and therefore needs no expertise, creating it or reading it) and that poetry cannot establish a real system of merit) but it is also true that we should not dismiss the whole outlet because the percentages do not favor it. All it takes is one new idea, one exquisite work to inspire a whole new energy and direction, a fantastic tangent or a great complement to what is now being written. It would be cynical at best to say that it is not worth the effort; and we must remember that even the best poetry is not by design published to dominate the market but to contribute to a rich and varied tradition.
William Frank
