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| image via Open Europe |
Don’t get me wrong. The waiting is anxiety-filled, but it’s also a pleasure. Just like submitting work to magazines and journals, whenever I get a manuscript rejection I have an opportunity to send the work out again.
Hello, Lemons. Meet Sugar and Water.
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| via Shirt Woot! |
Announcements like this are, I think, the lamest form of rejection, though the worst variety of this form must be the one where an announcement’s been made and all your friends have received their official rejections, except yours has yet to show up in the mailbox. Besides the fact that you’ve spent money on a SASE as a guarantee of receiving said official notification, if you’re like me in this situation, there’s always that little bit of your manuscript soul caught in manuscript limbo and you find yourself in the produce aisle reaching for a lemon but coming up with a handful of elaborate scenarios which always end in first book publication despite the winner already being selected.
I know: neurotic.
I’ve also received a couple of the standard “Dear Poet” rejections. This form of rejection is better than nothing. At least something comes in the mail that day. At least you finally know the full results, and that’s a relief.
And, then, on the good side of things, I’ve been a runner-up, finalist, or semifinalist a few times.
In the recent while, though, poetry manuscript news is beginning to trickle in with greater consistency and it’s done so in a weirdly yin yang fashion. Should make for an interesting summer.
A couple weeks ago, I received a standard "Dear Poet" rejection. All good and fine, but still a rejection. Then, only a day later, I received a really nice email from a person at a major poetry press and contest, one different from the “Dear Poet” rejection. Actually this person was associated with a press that’d made an “announcement” months ago. Out of the blue this person took time out of their day to email me some kind words about Praise Nothing, and said they were looking forward to teaching my book one day. Wowza. The poet judging the contest didn't select my manuscript as the winner, obviously, but this person’s note really added some fuel to the fire. It felt like a win.
In another moment of manuscript yin yang, I received my first manuscript “whiplash” rejection. If you’ve ever received one of this variety for a batch of poems, you’ll know what I mean by “whiplash.” If you haven’t, it basically works like this: you send poems to a journal you respect, and within a day or two, or sometimes hours, you find a rejection sitting in your inbox. Whiplash.
So I get the whiplash rejection, and the next day another email. This one from a person at a contest telling me I’m still in the running. That’s all I’m going to say about that for now. Well, I’ll just add that this email was a jolt. I almost didn’t submit to this contest and here I am still under consideration. Yeah, probably one of a hundred or so, but still under consideration: I’ll take it.
I’m not posting all of this out of narcissism, though this is a blog. There’s been a lot of discussion about the contest process on Facebook and at Huffington Post. Sure, there are a lot of things that could be tweaked in the process, and there are issues with the “po-biz” and “industry” (by the way, when can we stop calling it that?). But whatever problems there are, it looks to me after not quite a year of rejection that the process is getting better all the time, and that’s coming from a repeat loser.
So, a toast to all of you who are right there with me plugging along, hunkering down. To your persistence, your belief in your work, your neuroses, and your manuscripts: Cheers! And fists up!
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4 comments:
Well, of course, I'm thrilled that your book is coming close, making the rounds, etc. As someone who was in a similar position a few years back, be patient and don't submit to lesser presses just to have a book if you want the prestige and--more importantly--the buzz.
That said--per the HuffPost--higher ed is an industry. There's no getting around this when you look at how the decline of tenuration and the professional aspects of AWP reign heavy. And that's cool.
But I guess I'd just say, there's po-biz and there's poetry making. And I believe that a book is a grid point in the artistic process--it may breed a good deal of buzz and stardom, but from the no one (moi) to say the hot Nick Demske, we all engage in the projects of art making. And so, that's not an industry--the payoff is much deeper, more interior.
Art's weird that way--but honestly, I feel proud of poems and proud of books--but they're not the same kind of apprection, you know?
All that said, you're close and you'll hit. And that dude on HuffPo is engaging in a displaced conversation. It's posited as "contest fairness", but it's actually a fear that some clear, cut form of meritocracy is disappearing--as if American poetry has even been based on a singular merit.
If people don't want contests, they should start their presses. If people feel excluded from conversations, they should make new conversations. But they don't--because there is a desire to establish a professional reputation w/in the biz they decry
Lovely post and congrats on the encouraging news. Chee, chee (raising a glass of lemonade in your direction!)
Hi Joseph, thanks for stopping by the blog and for taking the time to share your thoughts.
I'll admit that I have submitted to a couple "lesser presses" -- one I withdrew from, another one gave me whiplash (this was a relief as it turns out), and there is, perhaps, one more that could be considered lesser, but they're a press I have some familiarity with, I like a couple of their books, and they're located in a part of the country that we'd like to move to after Knoxville. Anyway, I guess I'm wondering how subjective "lesser" is, how you'd define it.
On the one hand there are the big ones like the Yale, Whitman, Bakeless, Honickman. And other big timers like Sarabande, Prairie Schooner, and university presses. And some utterly legit small presses: CavanKerry, Milkweed, and others. But when you look at the enormous number of presses out there, the above list is a fraction of available options. Combine that fact with what I've been told about the link between first book and first job (that you need a book to get a job, and all they care about is that you have a book, not really what press it is from), how do you determine where you send a first manuscript?
My philosophy is to send to places where I'd be happy to appear, places that I believe in and respect, places that seem to have a good track record, places that've published books I admire, places that seem competent, etc. All seems pretty obvious though. So, again, how does one go about determining "lesser"?
Without listing here the names of places I've sent (though I'd email it to you if you wanted), this list of deciding factors has helped me narrow down where I send, helped me choose. However, one man's theology is another man's belly laugh.
To be sure, full disclosure, one of my goals is getting the thing published so that I can have a shot at getting a job. We've got a baby on the way, the PhD alarm is just about to buzz, and I've got to make some money. That's the fiscal reality of it, but, then again, that's only part of it.
I like what you say about the grid point and poetry making. Like you and NIck, I'm in it for the poetry making. I know there's no money, no fame, and I don't care about buzz. I just want to make poems and teach them. I believe in my poems and I want people to read them. I want them out there. It's how I participate in the private/public/political world.
So, what other advice do you have for a first timer? How do you define "lesser"?
Thanks, Sandy! I raise my mug of afternoon coffee toward the West and toast your continued success. All my best to you!
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