can i talk my shit again?
the way i like poetry most
often or of the time tho dep
endent.
1) you is an awful word. it implies somehow that you, the speaker of the work, knows me, its reader, personally, and uses this rational to promote some fascist fascism. sigh. it's hard to find a good simile at this moment... it doesn't matter: you don't know you, and the stones used so fancifully to dominate its audience by implying the reader as target makes the whole thing uncomfortable in the wrong way.
1b) if anyone may be curious of how to avoid this trap, and want to learn by reading, Ariana Reines' "Coeur deLion" deals specifically with this in a confessional type of way that is accessible and cranium dynamite to the less well read yet writing anyhow (G-d knows why). If you can maintain CDL from its perspective of coming to blows with "the I of poetry" and how "it should be able to do much more" on a daily basis you writing will become more valuable, even if you're still really bad. which, let's face it, is probably the case. You little rascal, you.
2) if i can spot developmental need from a single, random submission's author to become more crafts'personly with one's voice, and, upon later correspondence find out this author had studied with some of the great living teachers and writers while completing a particular university's hefty value, don't think i can't tell that you don't really read modern poetry any purpose beyond casually or to say 'i've read that!', though what goes unmentioned is the rumination by oneself about the text, the guessing each step as it goes... it's easy to make weird turns in a poem. even a prose poem. especially if compensating for language with whimsical sequins. even if one is overwhelmingly concerned with linebreaks and duality of the text.
listen, i read all the stuff that will never make it into a journal as often as i do from heather christle's books. it gives a different perspective. part of that is i can tell within a few guesses what author the person submitting work (or posting poems on little old tumblr) is currently enamored with, with staggeringly correct guesses.
this, believe it or not, makes it VERY simple to separate those reading other writers, and being INVOLVED with the text -- carrying the phrases around during the post-Indian food ice cream, let alone the simplicity with which an unread numbnuts stumbles thru with gimmicks thought to be worth my staff's time because yr boys were all 'man that's neat,' when they didn't even read it or gaf.
3) don't do erotic. and if you do, keep that shit over in that genre. it's fucked up to me that erotic literature has to be so garbage (though i guess it's not taught, except for specialty grad course exceptions, thus standards wobble mired in eh, which is unfortunate, too, but i won't get into my reason for saying that now). but it is so garbage. i hate to say it, but keep the erotic with those specializing in erotic. i know at similar:peaks:: other than me all the editors are females, and we don't find anything endearing or arousing about yr wild stabs at clever. let the characters fuck without getting in the way. unless yr creating a weird third person three way with two first persons... that could be meta-kink.
i still really don't want to read it though.
4) sometimes queries are called for. if a journal states a 1-4 month turnaround and you're up to the end of the third trimester and no word, fuck it, email a quick note where you acknowledge the editorial staff and the amount of time these processes actually can take. but if you were just rejected and in that rejection letter a phrase stated "... but please submit again in (x) months (often next year)" appears, or is on the journal's submission info page itself, wait the damn time. you can't tell me other journals aren't open for submissions. all youre going to do... my experience is that publications and those who run them are part of an insulated universe wherein a lot of conversations are had, and as discreet as things are typically kept, if publisher x says they are on the fence about picking up yr work while corresponding with me, or vice versa, that kind of disrespect will be brought up and the fence gets more and more wobbly, my friend. stay low key, humble, earnestly self-aware if necessity states asking about your work -- at least directly communicating with the publisher,... go ham about your writing on social media, if people don't like it they'll ignore it and yr audience will occur from negative space if nothing else -- and try to internalize the pure volume of writing (mostly shitty & unfortunately at times tedious if i am being honest with myself) editors deal with, then think about how selfish one becomes when begging for special attention. i don't care that you are now also published in magazine Y and think i should check them out. it's condescending, suggesting that if my tastes were as good as Y i would surely publish you, too, as well as poking around that i am unfamiliar with Y, but you got a leg up on me there. if you are someone who does this, ... thank you for showing me how to raise my tolerance wrt patience.
5) i keep wanting to say fuck your degree. but fact is, one with an mfa is nearly guaranteed to be very well read and understand the climate of publishing, and proceeds tactically likewise. but still fuck yr degree. as much as the beats kind of suck, i'll take street pompous over tenured hand me down pompous every time.
6) it's not unlikely for me to... if there are a few subs that are up for final cut and basically equal in craft, unless the situation is theme based, the decision may be made from me checking out whether or not you are willing to promote yr work that we may publish. some will justifiably argue this is traffic generating and nothing more. i counter that by suggesting that a writer's vested interest in one's work and seeing it find publication, following up it's livelihood by retweeting or facebooking the journal it appears in shows that you gaf, which, and i don't know maybe this is a dumb theory of mine, but it shows to me a greater career potential due to care and dilligence, which excites me, the publisher, to perhaps be on the ground floor of.
there is a point of diminishing returns in this regard, also.
7) if you're going to do the persona thing, go for it, but for christ's sake read some stanislawski first or something. be realistic. i get that making dick jokes is your persona schtick, but, again, self-awareness is imperative. as impartial as i work at being, or believe myself to be, human nature accounts for all aspects. it's protection survival carryover.
and yes, i will protect my little journal and it's livelihood with all i got.
to you, my journal is a vehicle.
to me, your writing is a cog.
see the boiling simple?
