[Susan McLean]

My favorite unintentionally awful rejection was one that a friend of mine got when applying for his first academic position after getting a Ph.D. in biology: "We had many highly qualified applicants for this position. Unfortunately, you were not among them."

Susan

[James Brancheau]

For good/great venues, first you have to be good, whatever that means, but, yes, they have their own thing going on. Something that fits into a particular vision of that issue, that year, or whatever. It's not a tragedy to be rejected. Anyway, that's what I tell myself in pubs. Then there are really traditionally good places that I don't bother with anymore because good poetry is no longer a priority.

[Michael Cantor]

My first submission ever was a really subtle short story about a worker who figured out how to disable the safety devices on his punch press, and broke all the factory records for output until he severed his hand. I submitted it to The New Yorker - where else? - a few months after graduating from college (and had worked for a week on a punch press as part of an eighteen month Engineering Training Program). And I had accompanied it with a letter indicating that I really didn't want to be an engineer - I was a writer, dammit - and please let me know if I had any talent. Many months later I got a reply. A form letter rejecting the story. But there was a preprinted line in it which said "Please try us again", or words to that effect, and some well-meaning soul had crossed it out - but so lightly I could read what was crossed out. I decided to ignore them, and within less than fifty years I was publishing my poems regularly!

(Like most my my work, the story about disabling the safety devices is true. The factory was on an incentive program - the faster you worked, the more you earned - and by disabling the safey devices I produced more than anybody else. They caught me in a few days - fortunately before I could cut off my hand - but I wasn't fired because the ability to disable the devices, and therefore establish myself as the fastest worker ever, displayed the kind of mentality business prized.)

[Max Goodman]

Frustrating though the inevitable arbitrary aspect of publication is, kudos to editors who respond in ways that make it clear a poem was given serious consideration.

In particular, Jennifer, I'll defend John Mella. It's not his fault that the least objectionable adjective for non-light verse can seem to imply that light verse can't be serious. The rejection you cite strikes me as a clear message--and complimentary.

I'm glad that rejection didn't lead you to give up on Light.

[Allen Tice]

My favorite rejection from The New Yorker was “How about never. Does that work for you?”

[Jennifer Reeser]

You're a good man, Goodman. No worries. I'm Native American. We get used to it

[Sarah-Jane Crowson]

[quote][No worries. I'm Native American. We get used to it /QUOTE]

You shouldn’t have to though, Jennifer. I’m so sorry. Fwiw I think your work is amazing.

Anyway, I’m on a train, so here’s a thank you mini collage for you and Mark which may or may not work (iPads & fingers do not great collages make but I wanted to thank you both)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1N-l...w?usp=drivesdk

I’m wincing at Michael’s half erased sentence, and the hand story & the real story. Ouch.

Sarah-Jane

[Jim Moonan]

.
I sit here, on a Monday morning of all places, amazed and marveling at these recollections of rejection. It's hard to pick a favorite dagger, but Susan's "My favorite unintentionally awful rejection was one that a friend of mine got" wins for its deft deflection

My experience? My rejections come from within. I don’t say that to make you feel uncomfortable, so don’t. Don't worry. I need no reassurances. Doubt is a cowardly enemy! Besides, I always wake up with a pithy response to that punk-ass voice, and I go on.

As Michael testifies, I reckon soon I will prove that thoughtless voice in my head to be wrong — or else write a poem/story to glorify it. Either way, I can't stop anyway, so I go on. I commiserate because I can. And it tastes like hot honey.

(I should be writing prose but I prefer poetry. So there's that.)

.

[Jennifer Reeser]

here’s a thank you mini collage for you and Mark which may or may not work (iPads & fingers do not great collages make but I wanted to thank you both)

I will take three 100-count boxes of these cards, please! Gorgeous.

J