What a Weekend

I went to Iowa this weekend to visit my parents. We went to Taco John's: it was wonderful. We had Zeno's pizza. We watched the Olympics. But none of these were the highlight of my weekend. The highlight of my weekend came on Friday in the form of what I thought was a rejection letter. But I discovered it was more than a mere rejection letter. Although I may name the offender in a future post, I won't name the journal tonight.

The letter stated: "We're sorry but we do not accept poems generated by writer's submission services. We encourage you to purchase a copy of Journals Name to get a sense of the kind of work that interests us." The aforementioned statement was on the journal letterhead. I'm not sure if it was a standard form letter. At first, I wasn't sure what they were talking about. My thoughts were something like this: What the hell. What's a writer's submission service? Then it dawned on me that they were referring to those lame services that play on the hopes of aspiring writers by charging recurring fees to manage their submissions for them and I'm assuming the majority of said submissions are sent out blindly. Or at least this is my perception of writer's submission services as predatory organizations which may be wrong since I don't know much about them. I did a Google search using the key words Poetry Submission Service and there are quite a few services out there.

First of all, I have never used a submission service in my life. Secondly, I've read the journal in question and it has grown to be one of my favorite journals. It's newer, its run by a college with an MFA program which has multiple literary journals, the work is intelligent, edgy, fun, etc. I've read 4 of the 5 issues thus far and even re-read one of the issues. I've kept each issue I've purchased. This leads me to my third point, what was it about my submission that gave the editors the impression that I was using a submission service. I only have three thoughts:

1. The poems sucked and/or they (i.e., the poems) didn't suit the tastes of the editors, and subsequently, they thought to themselves, and perhaps joked back and forth with their colleagues over PBR and pretzels, "this fucking jerk has never read Journal Name...if he had he wouldn't have sent such shit." You know, I realize not every editor's going to like my poetry and a few editors might even think my poetry sucks ass. I also realize this is how it works. And I'm okay with that. But why send me a letter accusing me of using a submission service. Why not just send me a generic rejection slip.
2. Something in my cover letter gave the preliminary reader the impression that I didn't prepare the submission myself. Now, I have to admit that my cover letters can be a little bland: I work here, I'm married to so-and-so, I have three kids, I live in KC, my poetry has appeared in Names of 3-5 Journals, and recycle the damn poems if you think they suck. I don't always mention the stellar poems I read in the journals latest issue, and in this case, I didn't name the poems I appreciated but I had in fact read 4 of the 5 issues of the journal. But again, why send me a letter accusing me of using a submission service when you have absolutely no evidence to support such a claim. Just send me a generic rejection slip. I could use it as a book mark when I read your next issue.
3. They made a mistake: they grabbed the "We don't read poems from writer's submission services" pile instead of the "your poems weren't right for us" pile. It's an easy mistake to make.
   

Now, perhaps there's something I'm missing but these three reasons seem like the most logical reasons.

So, now to a more important aspect of this wonderful event, which by the way has really got my panties in a bunch, the reality is that I prepare all of my submissions. I painstakingly fill envelope after envelope. I keep a database so that every submission is thoroughly tracked so that I make inquiries at the proper times, give journals plenty of response time given that it's a known fact that most journals (not all) are behind in their production schedule by at least 3-12 months, withdraw any poems that are accepted which I have submitted out simultaneously (to journals that accept simultaneous submissions), etc. I even have a huge database of journals with their guidelines, addresses, submission preferences (mail or electronic), sample copy costs, subscription costs, poetry editor names. I also update this database on a regular basis.

I want to be clear about this though; I am not upset about being rejected. Getting rejected is par for the course. I have submitted 836 groups out. I have had 80 journals publish 95 of my poems. That's an acceptance rate of 9.569377%. That means I get rejected 90.4% of the time. I guess you could say I'm better at loosing than winning; better at getting rejected than accepted...but who isn't...it's just part of the process.

What angers me the most is that a journal that I really respect would presume that I use a submission service...that is, if it wasn't a harmless mistake. Not only this but I'm familiar with and respect the work of 2 out of the 4 poetry editors: I've read their books and/or chapbooks. Anybody who knows me, knows that I read and write tirelessly and I work hard at researching and reading almost every journal I submit to (which I will add to in a few days when I provide a synopsis of my read journal to non read journal ratios).

I will perhaps, per Megan's suggestion, write a letter and/or e-mail to Name of Journal in an attempt to clear up things.

This is all I can say right now. And I'm trying to NOT mention the name of the journal.