With summer comes many deadlines for poetry contests and other literary magazine submissions, and my goal this summer is to send out as much as I can to any and all (free) contests, in the hopes of getting my first publication (woo hoo!). With this I am sure to get much more rejection than publication, and this is not being pessimistic, it's being realistic.
I got my first rejection from an anthology on motherhood. I carefully chose my three most fitting "motherhood" type poems (even though now I look back and would have chosen differently) and sent them off via the lovely swift internet to be perused and judged. I couldn't help but feel a real sense of accomplishment, not that I expected good news but just for putting myself out there. I expected a couple months at least to pass before hearing anything. But, of course, within a couple days I had the answer burning in my email inbox. Should I even open the email, I wondered, or ignore it and let the anticipation build up more? I am incredibly impatient, so that was a fleeting thought and I quickly discovered my first rejection of the summer (woo hoo?).
My only satisfaction with this rejection is that the email did say that my poems had "merit" and in a forwarded email (not intended for my eyes) I was also said to have "talent, but her poems are inconsistent- some lines are very good, some are clunkers. A no to all of them for me." I don't care that it was a "no," that person said I have talent! This was really exciting! And the push I need to keep sending them out all summer, yes, even the "clunkers."
