So I'm on a bend to send out more frequently this year and if I get these all done by tomorrow then I will have sent out to twenty different magazines this month. That would be awesome if I could keep up that pace. That also means I have to write that much more to keep that up as well. But this last time I sent out to a lot of big time publications like the New Yorker, AGNI, the Harvard Review and Yale Review, and I'm excited to get some sweet rejection slips from them. I'm hoping to get a wonderful collection of New Yorker and Poetry magazine slips over the years. I'll make a collage of them. Or maybe a mobile.
But I'll tell you right now, if I get published in any of them, holy crap, is there going to be a party. A big fat nerdy lit party.
Nicely done... I would opt for the mobile idea. If you do get published in any of the high-caliber magazines/journals, don't forget the little guys. That's all I'm saying.
ReplyDeleteAhh rejection slips
ReplyDeleteI got three in the last week
It was good
I am just trying to get my 200 or so out of the way - I figure that is good number and then maybe I will have paid my dues
Heehee, that is excellent. And strange. I just gathered a bulk to send out tomorrow, too *stares James down in competition* No, I joke, I am eating your dust. I am sending out to seven journals and it's the first seven journals I've ever sent out to. I can't even make a rejection slip mobile. :-(
ReplyDeletePlease invite me to your New Yorker party when it happens (oh yes, it will happen. at some point, it will happen).
When this part occurs, I plan on wearing the prettiest bonnet.
ReplyDeleteyou are my most almost published friend.
Sarah,
ReplyDeleteI will never forget you because I need every person I can get to buy my eventual first book. I think if I sell a thousand, it'll be a best seller in the poetry world. So I need to keep in touch with everyone I know.
Scott,
I find rejection slips are a lot easier to handle when you get published at least once. When I was just getting rejected with no publication in sight, it was a bit depressing. But now I'm going to laminate them and make a suit.
Gillz,
I accept your challenge. We'll have a race in the land of complete subjectivity. Isn't it frustrating to know that with every college journal you could send into them every year and have completely different chances?
D-ron,
I like to know that you have so many bonnets to choose from. I'm picturing my favorite one in my head right now.
I realized long ago that I didn't have the fortitude for the rejection with ultimately precedes acclaim... And therefore I gave up without trying. I think you should laminate all your rejection slips and then sew them into a rejection slip suit for wear on the eve of said New Yorker party. And you better believe I want pictures.
ReplyDeletei love the modesty prior to seeking some form of industry validation. does that make sense? we all do it. i think we have a tendency to believe that humility prior to this action will yeild some results, line up some karma, get god thinking toward us.
ReplyDeletei'll speak for you James, because you would never do this, and your modesty is genuine, but your poems are behemoths and not only will "something hit," but hit and stick. i'm not kidding...I've been reading your manuscript and just shaking my head thinking "you grows up and you grows up and you grows up"...but really. you are flexing rare verbal muscle, and I am excited that I knew you before your becoming a poetry dynamo on the national stage (the time is short at hand).
i intend to write a little more about your poetry on my blog in the next few weeks. godspeed...i want an invite as well.
Somehow my recent publication in this last year's "Outlet" at BYU-Idaho pales in importance compared to all this "New Yorker" talk...
ReplyDeleteBut, no. It was my goal, and I met it! And I'm damn proud of it! One day I'll send out to big names and get my own big rejection slips. =) We should all start a museum...a traveling gallery of rejection.
PS You'll be big one day, James.
ReplyDeleteThe magazines rejected your poems... That's mean. Because my mom says your poems are good and I read them and they are good.
ReplyDeleteWhat stamps are you putting on the envelopes? Have you found out the kind of stamps that non-rejectees are using? What about the paper? Recycled or non? Have you tried putting a hallmark seal on it?
ReplyDeleteDo you want to hear that I love you and I have confidence in you? Because that is true too. But only based on the stuff that I've actually read. I have not read your manuscript and I blame the hoarders that have it and not myself for not stealing it. I'll let you know how I feel once I read it. Peace out.