Thursday, February 09, 2006

Acceptances and Rejections

Unusually for me, I've posted a lot of poems out to magazines recently. Before, I'd tended to stick to the same faithful few every now and then, but I decided to spread my wings and try some new venues.

As a result, I've had some poems accepted in a couple of Scottish publications. Three poems - Light Verse, Openings, and The Kingdom - will appear in the annual anthology of Scottish writing, Pushing the Boat Out.

One poem, Song for a New Morning, will be in the next issue of Poetry Scotland.

But to balance things out, I've also had two rejections. One from New Writing Scotland, who have always published my poems when I've submitted there before! There's a first for everything though, and that includes rejections.

The second was from Mcsweeneys who rejected a sestina in the nicest possible way - "This really tempts me, but I'm afraid that I'm going to pass in the end. We just get more good sestinas than we could ever hope to publish."

You know, I'd love to publish a sestina in Mcsweeneys and I love the Mcsweeneys' sestina e-zine. So I'm going to have to write another sestina, as good as I can manage, and try again in a few months time. This is my new ambition for 2006 - to be in Mcsweeneys. Surely that's not too much to ask?

4 comments:

David said...

Hey Rob,
Congratulations on the acceptances.
Rejection is part and parcel of being writer.
It(and the fear of it) stops us from being complacent.

And sometimes editors get it wrong.

"(Your poems) are quite as remarkable for defects as for beauties and are generally devoid of true poetical qualities."
(A rejection letter to Emily Dickinson)

Rejected!

Rob said...

Cheers David. And yes, I'm well used to rejection slips. If I like the magazine that's rejected my poems, I just try harder next time.

Thanks for the link. Some good rejections there!

Anonymous said...

yes, Congratulations, Rob. as to sestinas, my admiration for writing it: something I have not succeeded yet.

and warm wishes for your 2006 ambition:-)

Rob said...

Thanks Paula. I've written quite a few sestinas now, but curiously enough, they all remain unpublished. Perhaps editors are trying to tell me something.