I have been writing poetry since I was 19 years old, and have sent poems to Poetry magazine, The New Yorker, Harpers and Atlantic, and short stories, poems and other short narrative writing to academic journals as well as markets like Esquire and Playboy. And yet, at age 59, I have had only one poem published, and that was sent to one of those Las Vegas-based national poetry contests who said the poem won in its category and would be published in an anthology of all poems that had won, which had numbered in the hundreds or so. I never got the anthology, so I can’t say for certain that even that poem was published, but I got a volume of Shakespeare from the contest organizers, and a $30 check if I remember correctly, so I assumed they were also true to their word that the poem would be printed. They offered me the chance to buy the anthology, probably for the $30 in the check, but I turned down the opportunity, and kept the money for myself.

My point is I’ve been writing for 40 years and going through traditional channels toward publication, but have never cleared the gate-keepers of the publishing industry. I’ve always known self-publication was an option, and an honored one since Walt Whitman himself was as much a self-published poet as anyone. Yet I resisted self publishing until now because I always assumed if I was a good enough poet an audience would find me. Instead, the Internet found me. And although the Internet explosion into American life is now moving into its second decade, it took the World Wide Web at least that long to find a model for poets to self publish their work, find an audience for themselves independently of publishers, and get paid for it along the way.

This Web site is a demonstration of that method. You can make a literary icon of Robert Schwab while I still have some life left in me to enjoy the status simply by buying my 89-cent poems. I’m going to post fragments, titles and first lines of them here in hopes they will interest you  enough to pop for the few pennies that will allow you to download a whole poem or combinations of two that I am offering for sale here.

If you do – and if enough of you do – I may actually make some money on this, which I have always considered my life’s work. Take a gander at the poem lead-ins and buy one or two to see if you like me as a poet. Then come back to the site and buy some more. I’ll be adding new postings to the site as I go along -- 89 cents or a dolla ninety-five at a time. I hope you enjoy them.