blocked shot
reeeeeeeeeeejected once again. this time it was really fast--two weeks. ouch. the tiny letter has this picture of a man on it with his hands out, and he has a sad look on his face. so far i am 0-7 this year.
in other news, i am graduating sunday. i won't officially have my MFA till the transcripts are sent out, but woohoo. i, like my peers, have conflicting feelings. i am glad to not have to go through the ringer on a weekly basis with little encouragement. but, i am really satisfied with where i am going in my writing.
i'm really happy with the quality of writers found in the program. there were few people i felt did not belong, which kind of made it difficult sometime to be confident or upbeat when you have so many potentially great writers--and i do reserve the term poet for a more selective use. those who know me know that i feel that not every good writer in the program is a good poet, per se. but not even good/bad because value judgments are hard to substantiate. i just feel like some people could be better fiction writers. with that said, columbia college chicago, for all of the crap and pathetic teachings of some of the professors, is loaded with talent, graduating and staying. it is nice to say, in the end, that none of my individual beefs with the program dealt with "this place is full of shitty writers." i will not be ashamed of having gotten my MFA from Columbia College Chicago like i thought, when i went there, that i might. honestly, i've read the work from my poetic peers from the biggest MFA programs in the nation--Houston, Iowa, San Diego St., Sarah Lawrence, NYU, Columbia, LSU, etc.--and my friends and teammates at CCC are on par or better than much of this writing. This isn't to say that I don't have favorite writers from some of those programs. I have a friend at Houston with amazing talent, a friend at Sarah Lawrence I think is awesome, and met a girl from SDSU with some unbelievable lines.
i had the great opportunity to read 2500 poems submitted to CPR this last year, and from that myself and the three other editors nailed it down to 114 pages of a kickass issue. I suggest you read Columbia Poetry Review no. 19, not only because I was co-editor, but because it really is a good read. i'm kind of going on and on about things, being pretty positive, and i almost forgot that it was a rejection letter that got me to post. neato. two weeks. i wonder if they laughed and sent it back from farmington, maine right away?
i can't wait to be published. i'm glad that they rejected me fast. i wish more magazines would be quicker. at the same time, we hope that they are seriously considering our work, so maybe the long months of waiting are good. i'm not sure. i have 8 submissions out to 8 respectable journals. i will not lie and say i expect any acceptances because of the numbers game, but i will not lie and say i don't think my work is better than at least a third of the poems i read in these journals.
some people think it silly to send to "bigger journals" but i do a fair amount of reading these journals and smaller journals and i have to be honest and say, if i don't like what i read in a smaller journal i am not going to send it there just because i think i will have better chance of publication. which leads to other ideas and issues. i would like to start a poetry/literary journal someday soon, and i really want to make it work--not just a web mag, but a really print journal. i know the market is clichely flooded to some, and that is really great for others, but i love being an editor, i love having a stamp on, a trigger pulled on putting a poem out into the larger world. i look at the handful of poems that i was the only one who wanted in CPR and they are in there, and i feel really happy for those poets and those poems.
it's late in the noon now, i need to eat lunch.
in other news, i am graduating sunday. i won't officially have my MFA till the transcripts are sent out, but woohoo. i, like my peers, have conflicting feelings. i am glad to not have to go through the ringer on a weekly basis with little encouragement. but, i am really satisfied with where i am going in my writing.
i'm really happy with the quality of writers found in the program. there were few people i felt did not belong, which kind of made it difficult sometime to be confident or upbeat when you have so many potentially great writers--and i do reserve the term poet for a more selective use. those who know me know that i feel that not every good writer in the program is a good poet, per se. but not even good/bad because value judgments are hard to substantiate. i just feel like some people could be better fiction writers. with that said, columbia college chicago, for all of the crap and pathetic teachings of some of the professors, is loaded with talent, graduating and staying. it is nice to say, in the end, that none of my individual beefs with the program dealt with "this place is full of shitty writers." i will not be ashamed of having gotten my MFA from Columbia College Chicago like i thought, when i went there, that i might. honestly, i've read the work from my poetic peers from the biggest MFA programs in the nation--Houston, Iowa, San Diego St., Sarah Lawrence, NYU, Columbia, LSU, etc.--and my friends and teammates at CCC are on par or better than much of this writing. This isn't to say that I don't have favorite writers from some of those programs. I have a friend at Houston with amazing talent, a friend at Sarah Lawrence I think is awesome, and met a girl from SDSU with some unbelievable lines.
i had the great opportunity to read 2500 poems submitted to CPR this last year, and from that myself and the three other editors nailed it down to 114 pages of a kickass issue. I suggest you read Columbia Poetry Review no. 19, not only because I was co-editor, but because it really is a good read. i'm kind of going on and on about things, being pretty positive, and i almost forgot that it was a rejection letter that got me to post. neato. two weeks. i wonder if they laughed and sent it back from farmington, maine right away?
i can't wait to be published. i'm glad that they rejected me fast. i wish more magazines would be quicker. at the same time, we hope that they are seriously considering our work, so maybe the long months of waiting are good. i'm not sure. i have 8 submissions out to 8 respectable journals. i will not lie and say i expect any acceptances because of the numbers game, but i will not lie and say i don't think my work is better than at least a third of the poems i read in these journals.
some people think it silly to send to "bigger journals" but i do a fair amount of reading these journals and smaller journals and i have to be honest and say, if i don't like what i read in a smaller journal i am not going to send it there just because i think i will have better chance of publication. which leads to other ideas and issues. i would like to start a poetry/literary journal someday soon, and i really want to make it work--not just a web mag, but a really print journal. i know the market is clichely flooded to some, and that is really great for others, but i love being an editor, i love having a stamp on, a trigger pulled on putting a poem out into the larger world. i look at the handful of poems that i was the only one who wanted in CPR and they are in there, and i feel really happy for those poets and those poems.
it's late in the noon now, i need to eat lunch.