Rejection

The not-fun part

Reading and unrejection

May 24, 2012 in Rejection | No comments

cup of caffe latteSaturday, I’m reading with Denise Calvetti Michaels and others. We’ll be reading from poems in Broken Circles–poetry about food to benefit food banks. Let’s get together, share some poems, and help feed people!

If you aren’t at the ocean or sailing the sound or hiking in the mountains, here are the details:

May 26th at 4:30 at T’Latte
37 103rd Ave NE Ste B, Bellevue (Old Bellevue!)
425.709.6868.

Rejection stinks

No-signIt’s never fun. But what’s worse? Not hearing back at all.

It’s like the zombie side of rejection–the unrejection.

Do you ever encounter this situation? (Or is it just me?)

Five places have had poems for more than a year. I’ve queried a couple, with no response.  A third replied, and suggested I resubmit using the new process (I think my poems might have been lost in the transition), so I’m starting over.

Yeah, people are busy, but…

I’ve had poems at a couple of places for more than two years. One was going to start reading again after the first year, but now the seasons have turned full circle. I queried the other but again didn’t hear back.

Yeah, this sounds like a lot of whining, but…

I could just cross them off the list and send the poems out somewhere else, but I have had people contact me after more than a year to accept a poem (and in one case, after more than two years and the poem had already been accepted by somewhere else and it was sticky).

What do you do when your poems sit in someone’s stack for more than 12 months? How do you query? Do you ever hear back?

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Finding the joy in failure

May 21, 2011 in Rejection | No comments

A friend sent me the link to this Theodora Goss post on Finding the Joy, and I was especially taken with–I loved–this idea of embracing failure. Embracing it.

I feel like this is something I’ve heard before–many times (fail better). But sometimes something hits you at just the right angle.

This used to happen in dance class. I could hear the same thing every day for years, and then one day it would click into place and I’d think, “Oh, I get it.” Then it would take a few more years for my body to get it.

Back to failure. Ms. Goss advises to do what you love, try new things, write the things you most want to write–and if you fail, embrace it. Relish it, I guess. (Learn from it, if possible, I’ll add.)

I think this can free me up. Now, instead of continuing to be bummed about my class getting canceled, I can keep writing in sequences and loving it (I’ve been doing that anyway). I’ll write out the ideas I have instead of being afraid they won’t work. And instead of feeling like my Sun Hunters blog is drifting on its own ice berg in one of the polar circles, I can just write it and enjoy the writing. When I think of something else, I’ll add that to the list.

Really, it gets down to sharing, and it’s hard to share if you’re afraid of failing. But not sharing could lead to a cold and miserly world. (This I call my Luxury of the Generous theory.)

What are you ready to try–and maybe fail at? And how do you embrace failure?

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Jealousy (Warning: Possible TMI)

May 18, 2011 in Rejection | 4 comments

A draft from one of the NaPoWriMo prompts:

Like spiders crawling inside your arms, up the curve in your waist,
closing in on your crotch, the slinky beasts claim their territory,
not one green-eyed creature, but a host–a swarm stinging,
a swirl, a jaundiced cloud. Like any other vice, you hold
tight to it, sick comfort you nurse as it feeds you–tiny bites
thin your skin, eggs lain. You try to rewrite the game–
it wasn’t fair. You’ll get yours–with worms in your hair.

I had that kind of a moment yesterday afternoon, and then I thought about this snippet of poem, and I felt better–as though, much in the way Elizabeth Gilbert describes the Romans’ genius as a being sitting outside of them, I could take my envy outside of me and set it over there.

I also thought about acceptance and audience–how as nice as it is to get published or to read in front of a large crowd, what a great joy, a deep connection, I find when giving a poem to the people, even if it’s only one person, I wrote that poem for.

Then I went to my poetry writing group and heard some amazing poems and came home feeling good and inspired.

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Not making this up

January 21, 2011 in Rejection | No comments

Today, I received a rejection from Willow Springs and a rejection from Willow Review–one in email and one in postal mail.

I’m feeling mail-balanced and willowy.

Now, onward to the Lucia Perillo reading and inspiration!

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Another one bites the dust

December 10, 2010 in Rejection | 1 comment

They’re starting to come back.

I’ve been writing these long–and, for me, experimental–poems since June. I’ve loved doing it. I’ve had so much fun. I’ve sent them out. And, for the most part, they’ve stayed out.

But they’re coming back. This is very good for my standings in the Facebook Paper our walls with rejection slips contest. But it’s also, I admit, disappointing. I’ll send them out again, at least once more–probably lots more. And I’ll keep reminding myself that if they don’t get published, they don’t get published, but writing them has been its own reward.

I might need to tell myself that about 20 times a day.

And then I need to write. I used to ride horses. I’ve had plenty of experience hitting the dust. Get up. Brush off. Get back on. Breathe.

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