*Originally Published in the May 2023 Newsletter* *The Pierian *editors recently read a piece over on the *LitMagNews *Substack that called into question some core contemporary poetry publishing practices. In his essay entitled “Lit Mags That Use ‘Uncurated’ in the Submissions Guidelines,” Timothy Green, editor of *Rattle*, presents an alternative approach to the traditional primacy of the virginal, “unpublished” works. What if, he asks, sharing poems publicly online with friends were not a death sentence to a work’s publishability? This is a very good question. To skip to the tl;dr, we at *The Pierian* are not quite ready to make the leap to “uncurated” as a “term of art” in legal contracts, because of a variety of enigmatic side-cases Green mentions (such as the curation or publication status of works that have been self-published in print). However, we acknowledge that there are some real problems with a total embargo on engagement with public virtual spaces for poets. With that in mind, we want to explore a few of the ways in which poets in the past have shared their works before publication. What types of interaction were essential and fruitful to their editorial process? What are the modern analogues of those interactions? This month, we will look at the Golden Age of Latin poetry, specifically, the Augustan poets who enjoyed the patronage of Maecenas. Ancient Roman poetics operated according to entirely different norms than poetry today. Plagiarism? That’s clever *aemulatio*, or emulation, as long as you gin up your thefts with some original interpretation or context. Free verse? Not on your life: poets chose a metrical form and stuck with it. The Roman publishing process was also unrecognizably different from modern publishing. A poet whose work was likely to command a wide circulation of hundreds of copies would deliver his manuscript to a copyhouse. There a roomful of enslaved skilled calligraphers would produce the requisite number of copies on papyrus (of a variety of qualities, depending on the importance of the work and the wealth of the likely buyers) to be rolled up and sold. Leading Roman poets did not publish poems that no one had ever seen before; but neither did they post them in the (literal) Forum like the daily news. Sharing unpublished work was done in person, through oral recitation. There are famous stories about Vergil adjusting his drafts based on the emotional reactions of the imperial family when they heard his work. Even more important to most of these poets was the reaction of their fellow poets, and of tastemakers like Maecenas who controlled access to patronage. #@callout These artists were encouraged to persist in their art without needing to worry about where their next meals were coming from. Maecenas’ circle included, most famously, Vergil and Horace. These artists were encouraged to persist in their art without needing to worry about where their next meals were coming from. They were also encouraged to compose works to honor the emperor and the Roman state. (Most poets today would reject the idea that they should compose verses flattering to their patrons.) A recitation at Maecenas’ dinner party carried a higher degree of privacy when compared to how pre-publication sharing and vetting occurs today. Many poets communicate not only with their closest collaborators and peers, but with a wide circle of followers on Instagram, Twitter, or Tumblr. These fora democratize the pre-publication feedback cycle, which makes sense in context. Only a tiny minority of poets today have access to a level of support analogous to what Vergil and Horace enjoyed. The NEH, Nobel, MacArthur, tenure at a leading creative writing program, selective residencies—these honors introduce writers to other prominent writers, and convey financial support, but are available to few. For less well-known poets, poets marginalized or excluded from traditional academic circles, and poets who are geographically remote from centers of poetic and intellectual excellence, the internet offers their only opportunity to seek the kind of collaboration that supported Golden Age Roman poetic excellence. Check in next month for further exploration of historical prepublication collaborative practices.