3 jun 2005

Another thought on publication and rejection (I have a lot of poems out there circulating right now and I had a weird dream about it last night.): it might take a few batches of poems to get the editor to warm up to your "voice." If you really feel you are right for a journal, but the editor has not warmed up to you, try again. Don't overdo it though. I'd recommend a journal where you think you might be read by the same one or three people every time, as opposed to one that uses screening by MFA students.

This does not apply to the poet who doesn't even know his or her work is truly crappy, and submits over and over again.

6 comentarios:

Anthony Robinson dijo...

Jonathan,

I think this is very very very true, both as an editor and as a poet.

I've had success publishing in magazines with one or two editors to whom I'd maybe submitted half a dozen times. Most of the time, I'd received a nice rejection, or some sort of encouragement, so I continued to submit until finally the editor found something he or she liked. This has happened with many journals over the years and it's always gratifying to teach someone to read your work over the months or years. Or maybe I'm being too generous with myself.

But, as an editor, I can vouch that this is often the case. Persistent poets (and those with talent as well) often end up in the pages of the Northwest Review, for example. Of course, there are the truly crappy persistent poets who get a lot of rejection slips but who are not deterred.

Jonathan dijo...

I used to help edit a journal as a student and Lyn Lifshin (spelling?) would just literally wear us down. You had to eventually take some of her poems. She had just the right combination of persistence and competence.

shanna dijo...

ah ha--so that's how she does it! :) (& thanks for adding me.)

Steven D. Schroeder dijo...

Yes, Lifshin does that to everyone. She actually hasn't submitted to my journal since I took over, but we had published her previously, and we got a submission from her when I was a reader.

I agree about the strategy, but don't don't don't overdo it if the editor isn't encouraging you. I actually told one person to stop submitting last year. I'd get a new submission a week after I sent a rejection on the old.

Anthony Robinson dijo...

Sometimes we get Lifshin submissions two or three days apart...

Jonathan dijo...

--

You mean she's still doing this?! She must have submitted and pubished thousands of poems. I wouldn't recommend the saturation bombing approach.