Rejection City

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So this is a blogpost about rejection. I was talking to a friend — a brilliant poet — and she told me that she had a big set-back earlier in the year. She had submitted several poems to a magazine she felt she had a personal relationship with, and the editor wrote back and said, “Not this time.” She told me that she didn’t know if she would ever write again. I know she was just feeling the August blahs and practicing some hyperbole — or I hope she was.

My goal this year is to get 100 rejections. You heard that right. So far I’ve managed 98 submissions of poetry, essays, or my poetry ms. And I’ve had (I’m guessing) about 30 acceptances. That means I still have at least 32 more submissions to make — and (horrors!) if any of those are accepted, then a few more for good measure.

Someone else gave me advice — and sent an adorable video of a three-year-old to illustrate it — of what might be called “radical acceptance.” The idea is to spend some time each day saying, “I LOVE my house,” “I LOVE my car,” “I LOVE this plant…this kid…this dog…this ratty old couch….” You get the picture. Just to flip that usual mode of noticing what isn’t okay, isn’t good enough, etc.

I love these rejections and how they’re helping me get closer to my goal of 100 rejections this year.

Well, it all sounds rather silly, now that I’m typing it up. I get bogged down by big stuff — and why shouldn’t I? Just like everyone, I often get caught by the little stuff and do some serious whining. On the other hand, sometimes I already practice this. A grown daughter hijacks a day when I really wanted to get other things done, and I decide to embrace it. My husband gets in a fender-bender, and I’m shot through the heart with gratitude that it was just a fender-bender and not anything worse. I get a headache and a voice from somewhere says, “I wonder what that’s asking you to pay attention to?”

I’m of course hugely grateful for the acceptance of two poems from Descant (a good place for you to send, too), and for the copy of Better Than Starbucks (with my poem!) that arrived in today’s mail.

And I’m very very grateful for the poems posted at Escape Into Life for August dog days (and I’ll of course be over-the-moon with gratitude if you check out that feature).

 

 

Review of Ada Limón’s ‘The Hurting Kind’

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I join good company in reviewing poet Ada Limón’s The Hurting Kind — reviews have appeared on NPR, in The Guardian, and The New York Times. I’m honored that EIL (Escape Into Life) offered me an opportunity to add my voice.

To read the review (and visit the wonderful EIL site), click on this link: https://www.escapeintolife.com/book-reviews/book-review-the-hurting-kind-by-ada-limon/

You can read my 2021 blogpost about Limon’s Bright Dead Things, here.

While I’m here, I also wanted to remind people that I’ll be reading, along with several other Madrona #3 contributors, at FinnRiver Farm & Cidery, 6:30 p.m., July 14. One day soon, I promise, I’ll have a real blogpost for you.

Upcoming Readings

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I admit, Everett Poetry Night keeps slipping away from me — but there it is, at Sister’s Cafe, every Thursday at 5 p.m. This week I’m the featured reader, and I would love to see you there.

And, on July 14, I’m trekking to Chimacum to help celebrate the third edition of The Madrona Project. It’s an awesome line-up of poets, and I’m excited to be one of them.

When:
Thursday, Jul 14 2022, 6:30pm – 8:00pm PDT. copy to my calendar, iCal export
Where:
Finnriver Cider Garden, Cidery Taproom & Orchard 124 Center Road, Chimacum, WA 98325, United States (map)

Human Communities in Wild Places
from Empty Bowl Press
with a Reading by Contributing Writers

Thursday, July 14
6:30 – 8 pm in the Hay Barn

https://www.finnriver.com/farm-music-event-calendar

As Music Isn’t Just Notes on a Page

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I love this quote, which I found over at The Poetry Department, so I’m sharing it with you. I’ve been working on a new book of poems, many of which touch on music in some way — a result, I’m certain, of taking piano lessons for the last several years and practicing daily. (No, I will not play for you.) I would love to write a blog post comparing playing music to writing poems, but I’ve never been able to hang onto the fleeting insights that sometimes come to me. Something about notes and rests and counting (also repetition!).

I know that being a complete newbie learner at something is very useful in understanding people’s process in learning anything. But, as I said, it’s a bit elusive; maybe that’s because I’m not trying to write music, only to play it. Garret Hongo says it better:

“As music isn’t just notes on a page or within an improvisatory passage, poems are not simply individual words on a page. They are collections and sequences of language that strike both familiarity — whether that be in meaning or a recognition of its form, its rhetorical scheme — and work a notable change or transformation of meaning and its scheme that defamiliarizes that which had been previously known, that makes it new, as Ezra Pound said poetry had to.”

Garrett Hongo
(b. May 30, 1951)

Meanwhile, I have two fresh publications to share with you, and both are available on the Web. I have a poem, “Pear,” that just posted today at Rust and Moth, and I have an essay, “My Mother’s Birthday in Ireland,” at Chautauqua Journal.