The Note

REJECTION AND THE MILKY WAY GALAXY

I.  REJECTION

If one edits a literary magazine, one has to be prepared to send out a lot of rejections.  I don't enjoy getting them as a poet and I don't enjoy sending them. When I send them, I don't want to offend the writer.   So, problems arise.

1.  I don't really want to spend a lot of time giving specific feedback.  If I do that, the work of editing a journal quickly becomes mostly the work of writing criticism, since we inevitably have to reject more work than we accept.  And giving detailed feedback invites argument.  

There are, perhaps, 4 reasons a poem gets rejected.

    a.  It's just not a good poem.  We all know how many ways a poem can go wrong and we've all wronged poems.

    b.  It's a good poem, but a bad fit for the publication.

    c.  Space is limited and good poems are crowded out by better poems.

    d.  The editor just doesn't like the poem.  

So, going through these again with the question, "How to reject?"

    a.  Thanks for submitting but we're going to pass.  What else can one say if one wants to be honest but not hurtful?

    b.  We enjoyed the poem, but it's not a good fit for this publication.  Often entirely honest, but it’s odd how often people think this is a lie.

    c.  This is a tough one.  It amounts to it's good, but not good enough. That's not a helpful rejection.  I hate this category.

    d.  See a.

Regular RHP contributor C. L. Bledsoe recently posted this on a facebook discussion about rejections.

I decoupaged a shelf with rejections.  Then I wrote an essay about it which was rejected.

II.  THE MILKY WAY GALAXY

I really don't have a bucket list, but I'd like to go someplace relatively free of city lights washing up from the horizon, so I can see the stars more clearly, and more of them.

III.  REJECTION AND THE MILKY WAY GALAXY

The latter reminds us that the former is not that big of a deal.

IV.  SO DOES THIS.

(My grandaughter, Alice, who I got to see last week.  People keep asking me what I want her to call me.  I've settled on DJ G-Daddy.)

Special thanks to Howie Good for helping us read poetry for this issue and, as always, F. John Sharp for reading stories.  

We hope you enjoy it.

Dale