Tag: rejections

Angst/

A model rejection letter

The other day I received an email rejection letter from Rattle, an excellent US magazine I both subscribe to and aspire to being published in. So yes, it was a blow to have my poems rejected. But I didn’t feel dejected. Here’s why. Editor Tim Green sends out what I can only describe as a model rejection letter.

As we all know, rejections can vary in quality, and you just have to deal with them. But I do believe there are good and bad ways to reject, just as we’re always being told there are good and bad ways to submit our poems.

So, rather than naming and shaming the poor ones I think it’s better all round to draw attention to the very best, in the hope that others may follow suit. With Tim Green’s permission I am reproducing the entire letter here:

Dear Robin,

Thank you for sending us “4 poems from Robin Houghton – thanks for considering,” but unfortunately we’ve decided not to publish any of these pieces. I want to assure you that your work has been taken under careful consideration—Megan and I each read every poem before replying, so everything has been read twice by the actual editors.

This is a form letter—necessary with a staff of two and all these submissions—but what I’m about to say is sincere: Unlike most literary magazines, we don’t directly solicit work from anyone; we feel that practice isn’t fair, and doesn’t make for a good magazine. Instead, we read a great number of poems—over 80,000 each year—and publish our favorite 150, regardless of who wrote them. The odds are always going to be long, but that’s the only thing that keeps the quality of the magazine as high as it is. We always appreciate the opportunity to read your work—that’s what we’re here to do.

Also, it should go without saying that our decision to return this submission doesn’t mean much. We’re just fans of poetry ourselves, and all tastes are subjective. Moreover, we’re always looking to make the magazine as eclectic as possible—often we end up turning down submissions that we enjoy, simply because they’re similar in tone or content to other pieces we’ve published.

In any event, thanks for continuing to share your work. We’re happy to read submissions any time, year-round—and we just announced that we’ll be paying all contributors $50 per piece, too. So hopefully we’ll always be at the top of your list for places to send new poems.

Best Wishes,
Tim

Timothy Green
Editor
tim@rattle.com
www.rattle.com

So there you have it – an honest, matter-of-fact, informative and elegant rejection letter. No hand-wringing, no patronising and no BS.

I’m a big fan of the simple but kind ‘your poems weren’t right on this occasion, sorry’ rejection slip. But if you’re going to say any more than that, then this, surely is the model to live up to.

I hope if I’m ever in Tim’s position I’ll be able to do as good a job.

Angst/

Dealing with Literary Rejections: Six Viewpoints

Dealing with rejections

Rejections - Charlie Brown

I was asked yesterday ‘how’s the writing going?’ which is always an interesting one to answer. First you have to gauge if it’s a genuine enquiry, or a generic ‘how’s things?’ A non-writer friend probably doesn’t want to hear a long moan about rejections. But submissions, and in particular rejections, is one of the unavoidable and recurrent themes of a writer’s (certainly a poet’s) life.

For me, the problem starts with the word ‘submission’. It’s so, well, so passive. To submit is to rollover onto your back like a cat with its claws retracted, begging for attention. It just ain’t dignified.

There are thousands of articles and blog posts about dealing with literary rejections. And can we get enough of them? I don’t think so, judging by the social media indicators. I’m not the only one to be fascinated by how others deal with the rejection game. I’m just as fascinated to know how the rejectors deal with it too. There are two sides to it, but perhaps it’s easy to forget that when you’re the submissive party.

Here are six viewpoints on rejection that I’ve enjoyed. You have to read them to get the full stories, but I’m giving you a flavour.

“No Thank You” – On Rejection and Writing by Chuck Sambuchino in Writers’ Digest.  “You can’t please everyone, and the moment you try, you cease to write anything interesting.” Chuck runs with the idea that all rejections are subjective, and you can rationalise them all you like but ultimately you just have to deal with it and not let it unsettle your writing.

Rejecting Rejection by E Kristin Anderson at The Writing Barn. Rejection slips are just part of the submissions game – there are no acceptances without rejections along the way. “You can’t win if you don’t play.”

“Never Give Up” — or How One Writer Got Published in Poetry Magazine After 12 Rejections at the Bookbaby blog, Chris Robley tells the encouraging tale of poet Todd Ross who was eventually published 15 times in Poetry magazine, despite his previous 12 rejections by same.

Submission, Rejection, Acceptance, Reward by Roy Marshall. Paying attention to the detail of cover letters and appreciating the ‘good’ rejections can bring some comfort. “Once or twice I’ve felt less pleased by an offhand acceptance than by polite and careful rejection.”

Ten Levels of Rejection (and What to Do About Them) – Nathaniel Tower takes a close look at the exact wording of rejections and draws some biting conclusions. “Not all rejection is equal.” Great to see the ‘passive aggressive’ rejection (beloved by certain publications) finally unmasked! (Number 4)

And finally, Robert Peake gives some soothing advice in What Should You Learn from Rejection Letters? at ReadWritePoem. “The very fact of rejection is insufficient grounds to conclude your that poems are terrible, that you are a terrible poet, possibly a terrible person, and that giving up writing for good would be a service to humanity.” Oh we hope not, Bob, we hope not.

 

Comic strip copyright Peanuts.com

Angst/

On persistence, or, another submissions stock-take

Broken Giant sculpture

Being back early from our hols due to N spraining his ankle, I found I had a day ‘in hand’ and was strangely at a loss. Until I remembered I’d been waiting for such an opportunity (ie an unallocated day) to sit down and open the ‘poetry’ folder on my computer.

I find it hard to get into writing poetry after a break, until I’ve done all the preliminary activity – checking what I’ve got still out, what’s in the ‘almost ready-needs work’ pile, a quick flick through the ‘rejecteds’ to see if I’m moved to re-work any of them. Then there’s the catching up with all the blogs I’ve not read in a while. I might check on what submission deadlines are coming up, and decide whether to go for them. It feels a bit like circling in a plane before landing – checking the terrain, the wind speed, the ‘big picture’, waiting for the best moment to touchdown.

One blog post that really got me thinking was this from the ever-excellent Jeffrey Levine: On reading and reading fees – how things happen round here.  Jeffrey is the Editor-in-Chief of Tupelo Press, currently accepting pamphlet and full-length collection submissions, and this blog post addresses the issue of why they charge reading fees. Apparently some poets have questioned why a reading fee is charged every time a manuscript is submitted, even though it may be the exact same manuscript as previously sent. Personally I have no issue with this – I think if one expects one’s manuscript to be read and considered then it’s right to pay for the reader’s time, expertise and thoughtfulness. If you send the same manuscript again, you can’t expect it to either be read by the same person (necessarily), or even if it is, for that person to remember it from before.

But the article covers much more than that – Jeffrey goes into a lot of detail about how he reads and responds to manuscripts, and it’s fascinating. Apparently it’s not uncommon for poets to submit the same manuscript again and again – ‘virtually everything we’ve ever published has been submitted to us several times over, even by those you might think of as Tupelo’s “big names.”’ One of the reasons I created my own pamphlet was because I was convinced that submitting the same pamphlet (more or less) to the same publishers again and again (and having it rejected) was a useless exercise, and that if a reader came to recognise the same set of poems it would just reinforce a sense of that poet having nothing fresh to offer.

I guess this just shows how much I have to learn. As Jeffrey says: “Sometimes big revisions make a big difference. Sometimes small revisions make a big difference. Sometimes a fresh reading makes a big difference. Often, even subtle changes in the order of the poems makes a huge difference. And sometimes, between one submission period and the next, a poet has an epiphany about how to make his/her poems or manuscript work—something snaps into place and s/he just gets it…..Moreover, I am not the same reader every time I read a manuscript. My tastes evolve. My reactions aren’t predictable. Being human, my attention span varies. Being human, what makes me want to turn the pages one day may not work for me the next day.”

It got me thinking about my attitude to individual poems. Last year I did a rough stock-take of how many times I’d send out a poem before putting it away in the bottom drawer. It doesn’t show a lot of persistence. I tend to only persist with those I think have something. And yet I know full well that my own appraisal of a poem has no bearing whatsoever on whether it meets the approval of an editor or competition judge. It always puzzles me when editors say on their websites ‘send us your very best work’ – would a poet really send something out if they didn’t think it was good? But then again – and perhaps more to the point – what difference does it make if the poet doesn’t think it’s good?

I’ve stalled a bit this year, in terms of getting poems published, but that’s mostly down to my own lack of temerity (I think) – I just haven’t been sending enough stuff out, because I haven’t been writing much new material, and I’ve lost faith in all the ‘rejecteds’, when what I probably should be doing is looking hard at the rejected poems. Maybe there are some I can improve. Or maybe I just need to try sending them to different publications. Or both. One thing I have been doing this year, even if not writing, is reading. I’ve subscribed to some different magazines to see what’s out there, I’ve enjoyed a lot of readings and acquired a variety of new pamphlets and collections along the way. But I need to make sure that being inspired by or admiring of others’ work doesn’t stop me from sending out. I think this may be what has happened – I’ve just lost a bit of confidence and momentum. But I think I’m in the mood now to tackle that.

N’s ankle is fine, by the way – two days ago he was hobbling into the hospital and now he’s playing the organ and desperate to take off the strapping. That’s confidence for you!

Angst/

A literary lunch, a rejection and a Robert Frost mystery

Emerging from the fug of the common cold, what should greet me but a ‘no thanks’ notification from Ambit. It seemed like an automated/standard reply this time, so I think I have to give up on it for now. The last rejection I had from them felt more personal and encouraging.  I think three or four rejections in a row (can’t remember how many it’s been with Ambit, actually) from a mag is a fairly strong indicator that my stuff just isn’t their bag. (Unless I’ve had something published by them before, which is quite different.) So Ambit now joins the ‘probably not’ list. (If the list gets too long I may have to revise my strategy but at the moment it works fine!)

On the positive side, I had a very nice time on Tuesday at the Chelsea Arts Club where my lovely agent (for my non-fiction writing) was hosting a Christmas lunch for some of her authors. A great chance to meet other (far more successful) writers and get enthused about everything from space exploration to Norris McWhirter. Imagine my excitement to meet a fellow poet there by the name of Liz Dean. Liz told me she had a fair amount of work published a few years back, but other projects have taken her away from the poetry scene lately. We talked about magazines, submissions, pamphlets, the way forward and so forth. She made a suggestion which I found intriguing and came away thinking “Yes, I will do that in 2014…” We actually shook hands on it, so indeed I must do it! I won’t say any more now, but all will be revealed here in the fullness of time. Ha ha!

The news that Douglas Dunn has won the Queen’s Medal for poetry had me panicking that I’d not read a thing by him. Well, ‘panicking’ is probably too strong a word, but that general feeling of “oh no! here’s another famous poet I haven’t read or even heard of! what the bloody hell do I think I’m doing, noodling about writing poetry or even having the PRESUMPTION to call myself a sortofpoet when my knowledge of The Canon is so completely inadequate” – that kind of thing.

So partly in a knee-jerk reaction and partly because I needed to return Simon Armitage’s Tyrannosaurus Rex versus the Cordoroy Kid (many gems there) I went to the library and spent an hour or so with the one Dunn book they had which was The Year’s Afternoon (brilliant title poem you can read here). I took it away to read properly, and also a copy of Answering Back, an anthology of pairs of poems, one by a contemporary poet in response to one by a more established/dead one. Edited by Carol Ann Duffy. This looks really meaty and I know I’m going to enjoy it, just from looking at who is responding to who, for starters.

Arrived in the post last week was the latest edition of Rattle, from which I get my regular dose of American poetry and Poems With Titles That Are Quite Often Longer Than The Actual Poems Themselves And Every Word In The Title Is Capitalized (sic). Also by my bed is the Winter edition of Poetry Review which I’ve only skimmed through so far but noticed another enjoyable and cheeky nod to Robert Frost’s ‘Stopping by woods’ – a poem by Kate Bingham called ‘Midnight’. In the last edition we had ‘Floating on Lake Windermere in a Stolen Boat’ by Sean Hewitt, a similar homage. Maybe it will be a recurring theme? Something to watch for!

Angst/

A reading, not much writing & feeling a bit humble

Poetry reading in Tunbridge Wells

Last Thursday I had the pleasure of taking part in a reading at Tunbridge Wells library, organised by the wonderful Abegail Morley and featuring also Jo Hemmant, Emer Gillespie and Margaret Beston. A lovely variety of poetry and styles, and a good size audience – there must have been more than thirty people there. Margaret runs a Tonbridge Stanza called Roundel and a number of the members came along in support. Also super to see Sarah Salway there.

The weekend prior to that I held a workshop day at my house for a few lovely poet friends. It was so interesting to hear what they were reading and working on, to talk about magazines & publishing, poets and writing. It did make me think of Jo Grigg, whose poetry days at her house had inspired me to do the same – she had planned to come to this one, but it wasn’t to be. Poetry can feel very solitary at times. I suppose that sounds like an obvious statement, but actually it only strikes me that way now and then. I haven’t written anything lately so maybe that’s why it’s feeling like one of those times.

Acceptance/rejection news: It served me right for writing a blog post with the title ‘Nice to end the week with an acceptance!’ – the god of humility struck me down fairly promptly with a rejection from Lighthouse magazine a day or two later. That, coupled with a ‘no thanks’ from Acumen the very next day after I submitted, put me back on terra firma. As result, I have a few poems needing homes, but I can’t seem to bring myself to send them anywhere just yet, although I should, otherwise I’m in danger of not having anything ‘out there’ when the next tranche of yays or nays comes in.

I still have stuff out with Ambit (who apparently have been snowed under since they started using Submittable – interesting!) and Poetry Review, plus a couple of pamphlet submissions, but that’s it at the moment. On the positive side, Morphrog (the online ‘extreme’ sister mag to the Frogmore Papers, and currently seeking submissions by the way) has graciously accepted a slightly mad poem for their January edition.

Angst/

Aftermath

Hedgerow at Ty Newydd

Back from Ty Newydd yesterday with a head full of I don’t know what. It wasn’t that I was sad to leave, far from it – I was so in need of my home, my bed, quiet time. I felt like I’d put my finger into an electric socket and then, only then did I really understand the power of electricity. An emotional last couple of days and even on the long journey back I found myself on the verge of tears at any moment, though I couldn’t say why.

Something about the mournful Coldplay song on the radio in the car down the drive, out of the gates and back to Criccieth station. Two small boys waving at the train from a children’s play park by the sea in Barmouth. Sheep running from the train as it wound its way along the Cambrian coast. My husband appearing unexpectedly to meet me at Euston (which was when I allowed myself to cry).

I will post more about the course very soon, I promise, but I just need a little headspace first I think.

Thanks so much for your lovely comments, here and on Facebook. I was very proud and pleased to come back and see a poem of mine in The Rialto. It was tempered with also receiving standard rejections this week from Poetry London and Shearsman. But that’s no matter. Better things to come 🙂

Angst/

How many times do you send out a poem?

Since my last post I had a very welcome email from Jan Fortune at Envoi to say she would take for the next issue all five of the poems I’d sent her. Just the sort of thing you want in your inbox, and on National Poetry Day too, hurrah!

I’m particularly pleased about one of the poems because it’s been through several iterations, first started in 1999 back in the day when I did write poems but they were mostly confessional/therapeutic or else experimenting with form in quite a crude way. I’ve kept most of that material, and although none of it is publishable or even good writing there are some nuggets of good ideas which I sometimes go back to. This particular piece started life with the title ‘Scar’ but is now called ‘Closure’, kind of apt.

So then I thought I’d do the numbers on my submissions/rejections record. It’s been a while since I’ve done any analysis and invariably it reveals a surprising insight or two.

We’re always being told to send out rejected poems again – a rejection doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a bad poem, etc – and there’s that legendary tale of how Kim Moore had a poem rejected 14 times and then it was accepted by a fine magazine – as told in this super blog post by Roy Marshall.

Apparently, of all the poems I’ve sent out to magazines, 21% have been accepted first time, and 18% get in after 1, 2 or 3 tries elsewhere. I’ve not yet had a poem accepted that’s been rejected more than 3 times already. Of the six poems I’ve had rejected between 4 and 7 times, three of them are currently out again. Of the 61% of poems that have been rejected, half of these were rejected once and never sent out again.

I know it’s not the slightest bit scientific but these stats suggest two things to me. Firstly, I’m giving up on the majority of poems too soon, while perhaps holding on too long to a few ‘favourites’ when I should just let them go. Secondly, I need to keep writing more new material.

One thing I ought to say though is that some of the re-sent poems have been tweaked or even changed a lot before re-sending, which probably muddies the stats.

Actually I was surprised how many times I’d given up after just one rejection, I thought I was much better than that at sending out again.

What about you – do keep going with a piece when you believe in it? What’s the most number of times you’ve sent something out? Do you send a poem out again without modifying it, or do you make changes?

audio/

Audio poem (an experiment)

I was inspired by Mark Hewitt’s performance of ‘expiry tbc‘ the other evening here in Lewes. It was actually a 3-person production featuring Peter Copley on live (and looped) cello, and wonderful lighting effects by Kristina Hjelm. I’d had the privilege of being in Mark’s workshopping group led by Mimi Khalvati earlier in the year, and he had brought along various versions of the text. But although some of the words were familiar, it was amazing how exciting and moving the whole package became with the addition of sound, light and staging. I’ve often fallen into the trap of thinking that performance poetry is mostly about shouting, rhyming and making the audience laugh. But this was something else entirely.

So I went back to my ‘3 voice canon’ poem – the one I sent to Magma for their theme ‘The music of words’ (still open for admissions, by the way) but was rejected, because they said they couldn’t see the connection between the stanzas, and I recorded it the way I envisage it being read. I used a bit of software called Audacity, in which it’s easy to record one track and layer copies of it over the top in a stagger. I was having so much fun I gave it four tracks in the end. So maybe I should re-title it ‘4-voice canon’?

I did it on one take, so I’m sure I could improve on it, although I don’t want to start putting on silly voices or making it over dramatic. Let me know what you think – thanks.

Angst/

Just a quick ‘yay’ and ‘nay’

Poetry Review rejection

Frogmore Papers 82

How exciting to have a copy of The Frogmore Papers hand-delivered through my door the other day – handy that the publisher lives in the same town as me! (There’s a little poem of mine in it, thank you Jeremy Page for taking it.) Very nice cover art by the way.

Poetry Review rejection

On the (somewhat) negative side, a rejection slip from Poetry Review, but with a hand written note from Maurice Riordan to say ‘much that I liked in them’ – just a few crumbs of encouragement, but very welcome to a poet currently starved of acceptances. However, I’m feeling pretty chilled about the whole acceptance/rejection game after having just read Maitreyabandhu’s 13 Ways of Making Poetry a Spiritual Practice, which appeared originally in Magma but was forwarded to me by poet friend Charlotte. Recommended reading if you haven’t already seen it.

Angst/

Anatomy of a rejection

Rejection

Rejection

It was a long time coming (4 months) but Under the Radar finally emailed me a standard ‘not this time’ (or possibly ever?) note the other day, which prompted me (of course) to look at the offending poems to see if there’s mileage in sending them out again as is, or whether they merit reviewing.

I don’t know about you, but I sometimes look at poems when they’re sent back and think ‘well they were rubbish anyway’, but that might be psychological – especially when it’s hard copies in the post and they look like they’re untouched by human hands and probably went straight into the SAE within mllliseconds (as opposed to read, re-read and ummed and ahhed over) – isn’t it silly the games we play with ourselves?

This time, I’m not yet sure which ones I shall re-submit, so I won’t post the actual poems here, but I thought it would be interesting to do a little ‘hard looking’ at each one and share the process with you.

1) The first was one I was quite pleased with, even after workshopping in a Brendan Cleary session some while back. I did make some changes though, and my possibly ‘too clever’ syllabic scheme (which was supposed to tie in with the theme but perhaps required too much obscure knowledge of South American dance styles) maybe sank in its own merengue. But I think the premise is good, so I will persist with this one, perhaps send straight back out elsewhere.

2) Poem number two has been knocking about for a while and is based on a dream sequence that seemed fun at the time but I know the old ‘dream sequence’ thing is a bit of cliche. There’s a lot here I still like, but perhaps it’s a bit over-egging one decent idea, like an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, until you kind of see what’s coming. I do tend to go for cute endings and must curb the tendency for it to be too pat. This poem was first started about 18 months ago – it’s done the rounds and gone through various iterations. So maybe needs resting.

3) Quite a recent one this, and I think it was the best of the bunch. I don’t think I’ve tried it anywhere else. It’s in my favourite form, couplets, but I wonder if there’s just too much going on and  it needs simplifying. Again, I still like the premise, it’s unusual. So worth looking at the language and eliminating the extra weight, I think. Must not Try Too Hard.

4) Last but (not?) least: this one was always risky – a nursery-rhyme theme in Shakespearean sonnet form – can you say ‘rejection waiting to happen’? Actually though I think it only needs a small amount of close attention to make it decent. There are a couple of dodgy lines where the form shouts out and that’s not good. But a lot of good things. So not worth giving up on yet.

As always, I’ll keep you posted if any of these find a home elsewhere, with or without revisions!

Cartoon credit: http://billanddavescocktailhour.com/