Many literature pieces have been awarded Daily Deviations since the start of DeviantArt, but the fact is that visual art gets more attention. Not only in regard to DDs, but with critiques, comments, and favorites. I’m glad to say that the literature community has improved at an extreme level since DeviantArt first began, and more clubs (and people) have popped up to enhance the writing environment. This is added onto the recent contests, chats, workshops, and discussions that have received so much attention. It would be impossible to mention all the people that help writers to flourish on DA, but it’s needless to say that our gallery directors are a large part of the team. I’ve managed to collect some interesting interviews with the ‘ring master’ of the artistic flock, ^PurpelBlur, and the lit gallery directors, ^StJoan and ^PoeticWar. They’ve been kind enough to answer some questions I had about the DD process.

Ring Master/GD (All Categories) - ^PurpelBlur
Literature GD - ^StJoan
Poetry GD - ^PoeticWar

Q. Visual art usually comes before literature in popularity, just as an accepted fact. Why do you think so many people prefer traditional art, photography, and other images over lit?

PurpelBlur: Laziness and lack of time. I'd imagine that most people just don't want to put forth the effort to read a few lines when they can just look at an image to get the story. Which is sad because literature is an art form that does not like to be touched. If one were to translate a piece written in English to German, some of the original feeling is likely to be lost. If literature is made into a painting, the same is possible to happen because literature allows one to create the image in his or her mind thus encouraging development of creativity and the imagination. As for lack of time, a literature piece may be looked at and be regarded as "too long; didn't read" but most take merely five to ten minutes to read, if that.

PoeticWar: Presumably you mean on dA specifically? I don't know if 'reference' is the right word to label to the divide -- I would say a preference for it exists here because i) the membership is mostly quite young, ii) visual art requires an instant to take in some kind of pseudo-entirety, iii) contrastingly, lit requires time and often a degree of brainpower, iv) increasingly people simply aren't brought up with the faculties for recognizing and appreciating good literature -- that in itself often requires conscious choice and effort.

StJoan: Visual art is very quick on the viewer. It's boom an image and hopefully that image catches your eye and then you spend more time taking it in and digesting it. Literature on the other hand takes a bit of work on the audience's part not only to read the piece but to think critically about it. This is something that is difficult to overcome but the dA community is getting a lot better about their attention span.

Q. You must get a lot of DD suggestions with work you don’t always prefer. What do you like in a poem? For instance, I love imagery, and for me, that almost takes over for the message itself, but is it very important for the poem to make sense overall? Or do you think it’s the feeling within the words that matter? Basically, what kind of poem or prose would you award a DD?

PoeticWar: Words don't contain feeling -- at best, they point towards a hoped-for shared experience. Sense and meaning in poetry is a shop display of worm-cans. The critical approach is to regard the poem as iconic: the poem means what the poem means, and any attempt at paraphrasing that meaning either results in the poem again, or in something inaccurate and reductive. The sensible, pragmatic approach is to realize that at the very least the author should know what he or she is trying to do with the poem -- often when a poet is reluctant to say what their poem means, it's because the poem is meaningless for them. And in that case, it's extremely presumptuous to expect it to mean anything for a reader.

That said, sense is a very tricky business in poetry. A poem 'communicates' not only with semantics (i.e. the literal sense of a word or words) but with sound (alliteration, assonance, consonance, rhyme, meter, etc), form (line breaks, stanza breaks, and so on), the positions and juxtapositions of words, and a whole bunch of other factors that may depend on what kind of poetry is being talked about.

So -- what do I like? It's difficult for me to be so consciously reductive as to state a criteria for taste. But I like succinct poetry that is careful with abstractions and shows some ambition. I'm comfortable with formal and free verse.

StJoan: Personally I like blood sex drugs and rock 'n roll. I'm all about jazz in a piece, things that push us out of our comfort zone and into a place where we're forced to look at ourselves stark naked. To me, content is first and foremost and lit devices such as imagery and sonics and enjambment are tools to reach the ultimate goal of a poem that not only communicates but does so in a beautiful way.

Q. What are the most common mistakes that ruin the chances of a good deviation getting a DD? Will a bad suggestion (wrong title, sloppy summary) make a difference?

PurpelBlur: Oh, no, nothing like that. The only rule is that an artist can not be given a Daily Deviation until three months after receiving any DD prior. There is NO favorite, view, or comment limit. If a DD is given it is because the admin who gave it felt that it was deserved. Just because a deviant is "popular" does not mean he or she is disqualified from receiving a DD.

PoeticWar: Spelling mistakes are a pain when looking at a poem which is otherwise very much suitable. Usually I give the benefit of the doubt and just leave a comment correcting them or similar, and then give a DD anyway. I don't know what rules you mean, but I guess that could be a problem... In regard to suggestions, if the poem linked is good, it doesn't matter what the suggestion says -- it could be blank for all it matters.

StJoan: I read all my notes, so even if you don't title it DD Suggestion- I’m going to see it, so that's no worries for me. What is irritating is when I get a note without a link to a certain deviation. Don't suggest people! Suggest work!

Also- I do read all the suggestions. Don't ask me if I’ve gotten to your piece yet. The answer is probably yes, and if I haven't sent you a reply it's because I’m a dork who really doesn't know what to say other than- "Thanks for sending this in, I will consider it when I'm selecting my DDs." But that's impersonal and I think people would know it's just a canned response. I don't like that.

Q. How many suggestions do you get a day? Or a week?

PurpelBlur: I receive approximately ten per week.

PoeticWar: I must get around 2 or 3 a day, I guess

StJoan: I get about 2 or 3 a day, but sometimes it's a lot more than that (and those people know who they are ) and sometimes it's less. At first it was rough to get suggestions but groups like *WordCount stepped up and helped us new guys out with pieces. Now people pretty much know who we are so they send in pieces regularly.

Q. As a percentage, how many DDs do you award from all the deviations that are suggested during the week?

PurpelBlur: I try to give one per day, so around seventy percent.

PoeticWar: I have no idea. Maybe 20%?

StJoan: Well since we have three lit GDs we also have a schedule. Everyone has two days and then one day that sort of rotates. So the percentage depends on the amount of pieces I get suggested a week.

Q. Do you allow deviants to suggest their own work for DDs?

PurpelBlur: I do not promote or encourage it and in fact dislike seeing such suggestions. Though it is true that I do not disallow it. If an artist is to suggest him or herself to me, I expect him or her to suggest other artists as well. Regardless of how I come across a DD, it is still my decision.

PoeticWar: I usually don't. If people want their work to be considered for a DD, it's a much better idea for them to suggest other people -- I always check out suggesters' galleries, and if what they suggest is good, it's likely their own work will be as well.

StJoan: We have this stigma attached to being proud of your own work and that's something I've never really enjoyed. When it comes to the publishing world you can't just sit back and wait for someone to send a piece of yours in to a magazine or journal, you have to do it. It takes guts, it takes confidence, but it shows me that you're serious about your work. People need to learn to market themselves, and what better environment to start that then on dA with a GD that isn't going to be flip with you.

Q. There is an article by a banned deviant that explains why there should be no DDs on DeviantArt. What do you believe is the purpose of a DD?

PurpelBlur: Daily Deviations help to expose an image to a wider audience and in most cases the gallery as a whole gets more attention. There is no specific artist that deserves a DD as DDs are given to pieces that admin, in their opinion, feel deserve it.

PoeticWar: I'm never really sure what the criteria for DDs are meant to be. Some say it's strictly down to the personal taste of the GDs, but I don't think that's true. I often feature work I don't really enjoy but in which I still see a lot of skill. I like to DD unknowns whenever I can, but also feel the better, more popular writers deserve them equally. The DD is a funny mix of educational tool and award. It's a vehicle for dA to demonstrate the caliber of the work it contains, an encouragement to developing writers, and a kind of benchmark for less experienced poets to aim for.