It’s the inevitable outcome of submitting your work to magazines. Way back in November I sent five of my poems out in to the world to see what might happen. This last week the last magazine I sent them to rejected them and was also the best rejection note I received.
Most rejection notes are a version of, “No reflection on your or the quality of your poems, but we don’t want them.” One publication went on to quote how many poems they receive per year – like that’s suppose to make me feel better that I didn’t make the cut or perhaps it’s a hint to stop sending them stuff. I haven’t decided yet.
I did get one rejection that was encouraging. The editor wrote: “While these poems do not meet our current needs, we did find much to admire in them and would consider future work.”
Well, thank you – I’ll get started on some new stuff right away.
I mean, I am working on new things, but life has been busy and time for writing has been limited to these Sunday afternoon blog posts. I’d like to do more creative work, but at the moment – life, work, tax session, bought a new cell phone and thinking about driving across the country to start a new life all have had me so busy there isn’t much time for just writing.
Time, that’s one thing we never have enough of.
I do have other places I can send the poems to and as soon as the taxes are done, I’ll send them out. I’ve asked a few poets how they got published and most said, “persistence.” A few answered, “luck.”
So there it is lucky persistence.
I’ll keep you updated on the next batch of rejections.
