| Author | Message | ||
| ~M~
Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 30268 Registered: 11-1998 |
Dearest All -- I just received the latest Poet's Market Newsletter, and thought you might be interested in reading this. No huge message here, but it is something to tuck in your pocket from an editor. That's all! Love, M ------------------------------------------------- From The Poet's Market Newletter: June 11, 2008 FROM THE EDITOR Lately, there have been a ton of crazy cicadas flying around outside the Poet's Market HQ. They've been buzzing around without any apparent pattern or thought, which has led to many of them ending up splattered across my windshield (gross!). Anyway, the crazy flight patterns of cicadas remind me of the crazy submission patterns of some poets. For instance, some poets will go long stretches of time without submitting anything. Then, suddenly and without any apparent pattern, they'll begin submitting everywhere they possibly can without any rhyme or reason — or strategy. Then, they either go back under ground for another long stretch of time, or they end up on my windshield (i.e., rejected). If you're one of these cicada-type poets, quit doing that. It's annoying. Slow down and study the publications to which you wish to submit your poems. Then, follow their submission guidelines. And never ever address your cover letter to "Dear Sirs" — for more on that, check out this blog post. Until next time, keep poeming! Robert Lee Brewer Editor, Poet's Market ------------------------------------ | ||
| Lazarus
Senior Member Username: lazarus Post Number: 3434 Registered: 10-2005 |
How about: Dear Ambiguous and All-powerful Judge of my Life's Work and Heart, I'm not sure how an editor can know that anyone is sending multiple submissions, are they reading other people's mail? I think it sounds perfectly sensible to send out a flurry of poems- if the flurry is two or three a week say- for a month and then lay off for a while and see what happens. Wouldn't that help the poet asses their ability to be accepted by publications? As for reading the zine you are trying to get in- there is such a wide range of poetry getting published on the web, there's no way to tell if your stuff is going to fly. I think it's a crap shoot, whether your on the pile at the right time, or the editor knows you already and expects something good when they see who it is. (And of course, whether the poem has a polished feel to it and works and doesn't sound like anything they recently read.) I think this editor just needed something to carp, eh.. write about for their magazine. Boy, I'm certainly cranky about publishing advice lately aren't I? It's nothing against you M. Please keep the advice and thoughts of the publishing elites coming. I can learn, really I can. -Laz | ||
| ~M~
Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 30299 Registered: 11-1998 |
Dearest Laz -- a steady stream of submissions is often better for the poet than turning the faucet on and off. If you lay off for a while, you're really just wasting time. Most mags have a three to six month response time. Meanwhile, you're sitting there twiddling your thumbs, waiting. And putting too much stock in any one submission. Submissions are a numbers game. The more submissions you have out there, the better your odds. The answer to this question: "Wouldn't that help the poet asses their ability to be accepted by publications?" is most often, "No." What one editor hates, another editor might love. Poems aren't an entity floating out there in the ozone being wonderful all by themselves. They are either right for a particular mag or wrong for it. That says nothing about the poem itself. This is the mistake most beginning poets make -- thinking that a poem, in and of itself, is either good or bad. Nope, sorry. A poem is either acceptable in certain markets, or it isn't. You have to match your submissions to the mag's style and tastes. A rejection is often no reflection on the poem itself. It just might not be right for the mag you sent it to, that's all. Some other mag will love it. The poem I talked about that just got accepted was rejected by six other mags. If I'd stopped submitting, I would have made a big mistake. It wasn't the poem. I was targetting the wrong markets. You're putting too much emphasis on rejections, Laz, and too much stock in any one editor's opinions and tastes. The editor just like green pants. You sent him red ones. He sent them back. That's all there is to it most of the time. You gotta get tough. Rejections are just part of the biz. Get used to them. You'll get a lot of them. If every rejection tears you apart, you'll never make it. Simultaneous submissions are a common practice. Most mags specify in their submission guidelines whether simultaneous submissions are acceptable to them or not. Most mags realize that poets don't have the time to sit around waiting for six months for a response, so the majority are cool with simultaneous subs. Keep the poems in circulation. As I said, it's a numbers game. You make a hundred phone calls and you up your chances that someone will say yes. Question all you want, Laz. That's what I'm here for. I've been editing and submitting my own work for a long time. You might as well take advantage of the knowledge I've managed to accumulate. Love, M | ||
| brenda morisse
Advanced Member Username: moritric Post Number: 2019 Registered: 04-2007 |
Dearest M, my hermana swinka, Okay. I have another problem. I never seem to have enough work to send out. Let's say I write a poem, and I like it. Then, the previous poems I've written look like junk. So then I go back to an older poem and rewrite, and it's almost as if it becomes a new poem, so then I have two new poems and everything else is junk. So then i write another poem and then the poems that I thought were done are junk. How do I stop this junking around.? It makes me crazy. love, love, borrachita | ||
| ~M~
Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 30300 Registered: 11-1998 |
Dearest borrachita -- you will never stop junking around. Get used to it. Some famous poet somewhere said, "Poems are never finished. They are merely abandoned." That poem of mine that just got accepted is one I've been working and reworking and reworking again for ten years. Most of the poems that I have that have been accepted I hate. I hate them when I send them out, I hate them when they get rejected, I hate them when they get accepted. But I really, really hate them a whole lot when I go back to the mag's archives and read them five years later. I say, "God, that stinks. What was I thinking?" But there it is -- permanently on display. And I can't change it. I just pretend it never existed and when people ask if it's mine, I say "Oh, no. Not that one. Must be some other M." Writing is very confusing, mi hermana. No one ever knows when something is done. No one ever knows when something is good. This is an art. It's a lot like making soup. Some people will eat your soup and say, "God, that was delicious!" Some other customer will come in and spit your soup on the spit. In this case, the customer is not always right. Just keep making soup. Someone somewhere will eat it. love, love, swinka | ||
| brenda morisse
Advanced Member Username: moritric Post Number: 2022 Registered: 04-2007 |
Dearest swinka, so you mean that even if I hate the junk, I should send it out? I'm so confused. When you send out your work, you send out the poems you hate? My brain is doing is doing the hula, now. I'm getting dizzy. I think I need sleep. love, love, borrachita junk | ||
| LJ Cohen
Moderator Username: ljc Post Number: 9565 Registered: 07-2002 |
I think you have to hate something to send it out. Sort of like why G-d makes teenagers so obnoxious. Otherwise, they'd still be living at home.  Kick those poems right out of the nest, Brenda. xo ljc Once in a Blue Muse Blog LJCohen | ||
| ~M~
Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 30302 Registered: 11-1998 |
Dearest borrachita -- In that submission batch I keep talking about (which I don't mean to, but it makes a good example), I sent three poems. One I hated with a passion, one I felt neutral about, one I sorta kinda felt was OK. It was an experiment because I thought they would reject them all. They always had rejected my work in the past. They accepted the one I hated and rejected the other two. Does this tell you anything? love, love, swinka P.S. I was mortified by the one they accepted. It was just a test; I wanted to confirm that they'd reject it. When I got the acceptance letter, I turned to steve and said, "Oh, god, no." He forced me to be gracious and say thank you. I had intended to dismantle it when it came back rejected, and rebuild it from the bottom up. Now I can't. I will never tell anyone where it was accepted. If someone mentions it, I will deny any knowledge of it. I'm serious about this. The poem is an embarrassment.  | ||
| Lazarus
Senior Member Username: lazarus Post Number: 3441 Registered: 10-2005 |
M~ I'm keeping your response to my thoughts in my things to consider before giving up on submitting file. Thanks for your consistent encouragement, even though it feels like an invitation to a firing squad. (and your examples of hated poems don't make me feel any better!) -Laz | ||
| ~M~
Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 30306 Registered: 11-1998 |
Dearest Laz -- yep, firing squad is right. You get shot down enough, you get used to it. Learning how to take bullets in this business is important. After a while, you hardly feel them. Trust me on this. I've been shot enough to know. As to the hated poems thing, *I* hate them. Obviously others do not. This makes them neither good nor bad. I just wanted to prove that we are often not great judges of our own work. You just have to send them out anyway and see what happens. No matter what happens, it's never a matter of life or death. It only feels that way. And speaking of feelings, emotions are not going to serve you well on the business end of this business. Use emotions when you write, not when you submit. Put the emotions behind a suit of armor. Honestly, Laz -- if you get rejected enough, it all starts to just bounce off you. You realize it's not as critical an injury as you once thought it might be. You can stand on the sidelines, Laz, but what does that get you? Nothing. The same thing as a rejection. So, what have you saved yourself from if you don't submit? Most often, the end result's the same if you submit or don't submit. But submitting has the potential for a win. Not submitting doesn't. Here's the equation: Don't submit = zero (with no possible acceptance) Submit = rejection = zero (with possible acceptance) If the same thing happens either way, why not just jump in the pool that at least has some potential for a win? You won't die if someone says no. I haven't. Love, M | ||
| Fred Longworth
Senior Member Username: sandiegopoet Post Number: 4074 Registered: 05-2006 |
In the end, a compilation of your worst poems -- the ones that never wade in past the shallow end of the pool -- will earn immense critical acclaim, including a Pushcart Prize and a Pulitzer. Your best poems will go unrecognized. Critics will refer to them as "obscure," "overly complex," and "off-putting." Over a two-year period, Gino and Marcello, the infamous poetry goons, will "have a little talk" with these so-called experts. Soon after this, your reputation will experience a long-awaited turnaround, as your best work finally gets recognized as "multidimensional" and "rich." You will look out through the bars of your interrogation room at Guantanamo with pride and longing. Fred Unofficial Forum Pariah -- recent victim of alien abduction -- I'm running out of places to store the bodies. |
