What a Google Scholar Search Reveals

The other day, I read a Facebook post from a poet who had a long career in academia.  He had done a search to see where he was cited in the academic work of others, and I did a Google Scholar search on myself.  I have done very little academic writing that has been published, so I wasn't expecting to find as much as I did.

I was surprised to find references to my poems and various books where my poems have been published (and there aren't many since most of my poems have been published in journals).  I had forgotten about some of those publications or maybe it would be more correct to say that many of those publications happened so many decades ago that those publications aren't foremost in my mind.

That Google Scholar search took me back to a time in the 90's and early years of this century when I was trying to get published as widely as possible, in the hopes that a better job would open up for me.  I tried writing academic articles because I thought that might help.  I went to give papers at conferences as I could afford to do it.  It was hard to do academic writing and presenting without a scholarly library and as an adjunct.

In a way, I was successful in working my way to a full-time job, but it wasn't because of my writing, and it wasn't the kind of full-time job I had been envisioning.  When I worked at the Art Institute of Ft. Lauderdale, I had the opportunity to teach creative writing and a few other types of classes that encouraged student creativity.  Of course, I also taught section after section of Composition.  The teaching load was brutal in some ways:  when I first started teaching there, it was a 22 course load over the year, a 6/6/5/5 load, with no chance for summers off.  

The Google Scholar search also revealed a thank you in the acknowledgements section of a student's MA Thesis; she got the idea that would become the thesis in my Victorian Lit class.  I remembered her letting me know that she was including that language, but in the passage of years, I had forgotten.  I got a small thrill remembering how the ideas in one class rippled across years and types of writing.  Delightful!

I thought of the Google Scholar search this morning as I was preparing a poetry submission.  There are so few places that have free submissions or submissions that cost the equivalent of some printer ink and postage, which for me is around $1.50.  If I was starting out today, I would not be able to have the kind of publishing track record I had back when I could submit for the price of a few stamps, envelopes, ink, and paper.

I also wanted to record a different kind of accomplishment.  This week, I saw this post and grabbed a copy to keep:

Yep, that's President Biden giving praise for Dear Human on the Edge of Time, a book where one of my poems appears.  I realize it's an election year, so he's probably giving acclaim to all sorts of books, and it doesn't mean he's read my poem.  But still, if any president has ever been aware of a book that contains any work of mine, I'm not aware of it.

If you missed it, you can read the poem in this blog post, which also contains information about the writing and publishing process.  

My spouse celebrated by making this Facebook post as he reposted my post:

"Work read to US Representatives at the Library of Congress = Check
Work read by a sitting US President = Check"

So yes, decades ago Kristin, your writing life hasn't been exactly like what you might have one day hoped to find in Google Scholar.  It's been richer in many ways.