trying to figure out why i always want to complain that no one likes my writing.
i don't even feel bad about getting rejections per se. i think it's that i struggle to understand what journals/magazines mean when they talk about what they're looking for? except for things like 'no rhyme' or 'sonnets' i don't find often that what they say about what they publish, their vibe, what they're into, is illuminated for me by checking out their issues.
i think, that's a bunch of poems alright! i think, am i stupid? do i understand language at all if i can't even parse these submission guidelines because they use abstraction? why am i, a thing that can't understand language, assuming i can have something to say, lightly or seriously? i know it's not that serious! but
and it hurts my feelings the way that sex and violence sometimes come up in submission guidelines even when i'm pretty sure that a piece i'm submitting doesn't contain those things. it makes me sad, it puts me off, to see 'sexual assault' listed undifferentiated among bigotries, and confused when i recall poems about sexual violence from that same magazine.
what's a justifiable depiction or talking-about, and what is obviously unacceptable? what is pornographic? what is just for the sake of it? how do you know? how do they know?
i have a hard time evaluating my work for these themes. and my own posts for content warnings !! i'm choosing to do all this. i want to keep trying because i think i have some good poems. i also want to branch out with my work.
baratheonpilled
discoholicmusic
prguitarman
germansingergirl
dededos
stormborns
romaincrisis
