I also posted a long thingie to Suzette Haden Elgin's blog about qualifying poetry for SFWA. Now, I don't have particularly strong feelings on this subject, and I haven't been paying attention to this conversation in the past. But apparently they've been having difficulty for forever in finding criteria by which poetry can qualify for SFWA, and I just don't get it. Someone tell me what's wrong with this formulation, which would hold poets to similar standards to short story writers:
SFWA qualifying credentials for poetry: Publication in SFWA-qualifying markets of a minimum of 3 poems, minimum of $25 payment/qualifying poem, and a minimum total of $250 payment for qualifying set of poems.Does this not work? I mean, I'd prefer that it was a minimum of $20 payment/qualifying poem, so that SH would just immediately qualify, but that number could be tweaked with as SFWA felt appropriate. The rest is simply being consistent with short fiction, and allowing for the fact that individual poems are likely to be paid less than individual short stories, just as individual short stories are likely to be paid less than individual novels.