yrmencyn | Webscab my ass.

So, who here's ever posted their creative work online, where anyone can see, FOR ABSOLUTELY FREE OMG? Well, guess what: Howard Hendrix, VP of The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, thinks that you're a webscab, one "who [posts] their creations on the net for free. A scab is someone who works for less than union wages or on non-union terms; more broadly, a scab is someone who feathers his own nest and advances his own career by undercutting the efforts of his fellow workers to gain better pay and working conditions for all." Now, he's technically explicitly referring to SciFi writers [within his organization], that being his field, but I doubt he'd look any more favorably on any other sort of author releasing work for free.

This is ridiculous. A writer who posts his work online for free is in no wise a scab (and that word? that's a huge word, jeezus). A writer who utilizes the resources of the internet and emerging technology is certainly working to 'advance his own career,' but hardly to the detriment of others. In fact, those who do so are pioneers in a still-unorganized domain with possibilities that haven't yet been even partly developed, and it is only through their efforts that the rest of the writing world can finally come to appreciate the resources of current technology.

There are, of course, a number of very good reasons why one would want to avoid free online publication -- if nothing else, it can hurt your possibilities of publication later (how ironic), especially for works like poetry, which are generally small and easily accessible online. That being said:

I believe that an author has the right to use his own work as he desires without fear of insult.
I believe that those who fail to accept the advances of technology are doomed to be erased by them.
I believe that a strong online community of writers enhances 'working conditions' for all involved.
I believe that a strong online community of writers can do nothing but increase public awareness of the immense variety of literature that exists.

And as a token of these beliefs, a symbolic gesture, one I'm making along with hundreds of other writers: have a poem. It's mine, so don't try to pass it off as your own, post it elsewhere without my permission, alter it, or otherwise infringe on my rights as a creator. I, in turn, give it to you free of charge, with no expectation of recompense except a hope that you'll enjoy it and that maybe, in the future, you might be interested in some others of my works -- whatever forum they may appear in.

I wrote this about a year ago, down in Louisiana:

But the moon is gibbous

April, and summer is marching on
already, at this southern latitude,
with his legions of mosquitoes
in the van.
Yet tonight, my open window
ushers in a cool,
fresh breeze that
sets all the little hairs on my arm
to attention.
Even through the no-sound
of the wind, buoyed
only
by the crickets' ostinato chirp,
a vocalisation lingers from afar.

Do you know where
you, yourself, are?

I'd like to arc myself hurling
on the return path,
but I'm two weeks too late --
then, I could have hitched myself to the moon's glittering horns
and felt its warm breathing as
I flew past its snout,
but the moon is gibbous and
my hands slip from the pommel.

So I'll be content,
me, myself,
with the inaudible hush of the wind
and the crickets' eternal refrain.

References:
First seen (by me) in