The Sad Fate of Poems

 

If you don’t enjoy reading poems, or you’re already thinking, The sad fate of poems is that no one wants to read them, then this blog post is not for you. Scroll on, dear Reader! I will post some fun story about a hike gone sideways or some other shenanigans shortly.

It started with a lively discussion at book club. I read the group a poem I’d written. I never do that. But I’d just written it that day. (Ask me which poem I’ve written is my favorite. Go ahead. Ask me. Okay, I’ll tell you: The most recent poem I’ve written.)

Amy said, “You should send that to The New Yorker.” I laughed. “I’m serious,” she said. So I did. The next day. Here’s the thing: The New Yorker responds “in six months,” as their submission guidelines indicate. Now, I don’t mind waiting. But… if I send that poem out to another magazine or literary journal, and it gets picked up by The New Yorker, I have agreed to immediately withdraw my submission. (“Oops. Never mind!”) Not a big deal; I do keep meticulous records of where my poems go. But here’s the thing:

Once it’s published in The New Yorker (yes, of course I’m being optimistic), it can’t go anywhere else. The readers of that erudite mag will get to enjoy/sympathize with/ponder over my poem. No one else. Because The New Yorker buys all rights. (“Ha ha! Your poem is ours now!”)

Furthermore, I have to swear on my firstborn (have I mentioned she’s a poet, too?) that the poem has not been seen by any other human eyes, has not been in any other mag, has not been posted on my blog, has not even been shared with my fifteen friends on Facebook. (Okay, I have more “friends” than that, but the algorithm allows about fifteen of them to see my posts. Thank you, everyone who clicks the “like” button or comments. Veronica, I’m thinking of you.)

This is not just true of The New Yorker. The vast majority of literary journals will state the same in their guidelines: If your poem has seen the light of day, don’t bring it here.

This is both amusing and frustrating. It’s also stupid for someone like me. Okay, so say life took a different turn. Say my father lived past the age of 43 and he continued working for the IRS and we continued living in our little bungalow in Lakewood and I went to UCLA with Cathy Dodd, my bestie down the street, as we would have done, since her father was a professor there. And then I went to grad school at Columbia and majored in Journalism and made all the good connections and attended all the right cocktail parties and so my name and my published works were recognized far and wide. Fast forward to when I start writing poetry and submitting it to The New Yorker and Ploughshares and The Atlantic and The Sun. Yes, those readers probably overlap. So The Sun doesn’t want to accept a poem that last month or even last year appeared in Ploughshares. That’s kind of like when I see a really touching or humorous video on Facebook involving a cattle dog but then I see it again because someone shares it on my page and then someone else DMs me with it because, yeah, cattle dog! Being cute! Seen it!

But in my case, at least at this point in my life (and probably forever because of the path my life has taken), there would be very, very little chance of overlap. I mean, you five people reading this blog post—Raise your hand if you also read any of those lit journals I mentioned above. Anyone? Anyone? (Bless you if you do.)

When I explained all this in book club—I mean, when I said, “If I send this to The New Yorker, I can’t send it anywhere else,” Sandy was aghast. And she had an opinion about that. (And if you know Sandy, you know she’s gonna tell you when she has an opinion.)

But… I keep thinking about what she said. To summarize: “That’s not fair.”

No. No, it’s not. And poetry… is not like re-reading the same book you read last month or even last year. Poetry begs to be re-read, in my humble opinion. How many times have I read “The Road Not Taken”? I’ll tell you: Enough to memorize it. Or “Themefor English B,” by Langston Hughes, a poem I adore. (Have you read it? Do!)

So… I guess (if you’re still reading, even if you don’t read poems), all of this is to say two things:

1. Stay tuned for a report when The New Yorker declines my poem (and sets it free to be submitted elsewhere).

2. If you do read poems, and you missed this blog post about my mother and my eyebrows, maybe give it a look. There’s a poem at the end that I now cannot submit anywhere. Because it’s been on my blog. For all five of you to see.

Thank you, loves, for reading me. It really does mean the world to me when you read and comment. Or just read. Writers, poets… we do so much of what we do in solitude. It’s encouraging even if one single soul says “Here! Here!”