Recent Rejection from Poetry:
Dear Rebecca Cook,
I'm not going to be able to use these poems, I'm sorry to say.
I enjoyed them, particularly "I Will Glean," but at this point they are
not quite right for the magazine. Thank you for giving us
an opportunity with your work. I wish you continued luck with your writing.
Best,
CW
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Got to love that "not quite right thing." And the thing is, "I Will Glean" is an amazing poem. I know it. It must be because it's probably the best poem I've ever written and I write amazing fucking poems. Oh well and yes. Yes. So it goes and goes.
Last Friday I mailed out six envelopes full of The Terrible Baby, my full-length poetry manuscript. I’ve entered the Bread Loaf Bakeless Prize (huge shot in dark), Alberta Price from Fence, New Issues, Vassar/Miller Prize, Perugia Press Intro Award, and Crab Orchard Open—that’s $110 for this batch. I’ve already spent $130 on Elixiler, Wind, Puddinghouse, Roerich, Slipstream, Flume, etc., etc. And there are many more to follow, probably around $250 worth.
I recently discovered that since 1996, I’ve spent $914.14 on “writing costs,” much of which of postage. Wow. I’ve been doing this for eleven years, now. Eleven years and what do I have to show for it? Well, an impressive list of publications, a couple of Pushcart nominations, some great almost-but-no-cigar rejections. Stacks of rejections, evidence of my hard, hard work. I am proud, but there’s no book.
But I will not spend the next five years going for this, spending five hundred (or more) dollars every year chasing the stamped approval of the academic poetry market. I will not do it. I will publish my own book. I will.
Now that I’ve done and am in the midst of all this work-the-book, do-the-book-thing, it’s so hard not to hope for the best, not to dream of the book, The Terrible Baby finally in my hands, delivered unto me yes, yes. So hard to concentrate on the writing and not on the reward. A delicate balance. Sometimes I do it well, sometimes less than well, always wishing and hoping in the background, underneath, the drum drumming of please please please dear god this time please please please.
It’s nearing December. The first of December is the deadline for editors to nominate for the Pushcart. Will I, will I, be nominated again this year? Will it be three years in a row? I’ve a wonderful friend who’s already gotten a nomination. I’m so happy for her. I’m so jealous, green and tight fisted. Will I get the NEA? Please. Please sweet Jesus, can I not set myself up like this? Of course I won’t get the NEA. Of course not. Silly little wish. Please. Please. Please pick me. See how wide open my mouth is. Nobody wants that worm more than me. Give me that worm and I’ll feed the fucking WORLD.
~r.
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