with every acceptance or rejection letter from a poetry editor/publisher
you never know which side of the bed they got up from that morning
or which side it was yesterday or tomorrow
kind of like @Sherry Cassells implies never give up
because of someone else
one more footnote
on another occasion also in the 70's
i showed my lithographs to a supposedly well known gallery dealing in prints and drawings
he looked with a lot of sincerity through some 25 pieces of mine
he said i was still young as an artist and needed to mature and i should come back with new work in years time
in this case i said NO
he was startled and asked why ?
i told him truthfully that the Stedelijk Museum of modern art in Amsterdam
had bought one of those prints for their permanent collection the week before
and that obviously some people didn't agree with his opinion
he asked me to reopen my portfolio and he wanted to look again
i politely said i respected his first opinion and there was no need for him to look again
silent lotus
`
I had a recent experience that was similar to yours. The response was:
"Kaci,
I've read and thought about your words. I've sat with your images. I can picture
to dress as creeping figs
on a sway of fence
---
I can relate to and deeply feel
My first memory was rain
---
I love the repetition in
Is all I ever loved. All I ever loved.
---
I sat with this mystery, re-read it nearly a dozen times
She doesn't know;
the spider bite
is a window.
---
And I wondered about my own mother and her constant burden of anger when I read
bones, the unconscious way
she is a gas leak.
---
These poems have so many spots of brilliant beauty. But they don't seem done to me. Every poem has a point of wisdom or sharpness or profundity or wit or pain or deep emotion. These vortices must be supported somehow. I would love to see you take an individual piece or two or a dozen and begin making submissions to journals (if you haven't already). Send them everywhere. The feedback you get along the way will help you continue to shape the pieces you have. And I hope you write more as well.
All this to say, I won't take on your manuscript at this time, but I'm compelled by you and by your writing. And I hope that someday, when we're both a little further down the road, you'll give me another chance."
His email wasn't unkind but neither helpful as I have submitted these poems for years, all are published, and I never have received an inkling of constructive criticism from journals.
But to some people you're nobody until you're somebody I suppose.
