Celebrate Rejections!
Have you ever heard the old expression, “The two best days in a boat owner’s life is the day he buys his dream boat and the day he sells it?”
Writing is like that too if you adopt the right attitude.
The day you receive an invitation for your full manuscript from a respected publisher feels great. But don’t forget to also celebrate the thousand rejections that are likely to precede that positive acknowledgement of your work! This signals I’m growing as a writer.
Last year I studied the sophisticated craft of writing fine poetry after a lifetime of merely dabbling… That was when I seriously “bought in.”
I spent a year writing and editing my own collection. With no credentials in this genre, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I still don’t. But like writing and publishing anything, whether traditionally or independently, we’re writing and getting our work out there. That was the day I started selling my poetry and myself in earnest, but it is taking longer than selling my boat. Enter attitude.
Today is another good day. I received yet another rejection “slip” from a prestigious publisher of fine poetry. Another milestone! Yes, rejections are to be celebrated for at least three reasons:
- Rejections demonstrate we are serious about not only writing for ourselves, but for others,
- Each rejection frees up a submission to either submit elsewhere (if exclusive), or to publish independently and guilt-free (it is good form to inform a pub to which you have submitted that you are withdrawing because you’re publishing elsewhere),
- These darn rejection slips keep our monster author egos from running away with what little remains of our humility, an attribute I would assert is essential to connect with the most readers (and my wife).
After independently publishing two novels (thrillers), I recently published my first anthology of outrageous original poems, each of which includes a piece of original artwork and an insightful essay. I had earlier also submitted several poems to highly respected publishers listed in “The Poet’s Market” published by Writer’s Digest Books. This is one of the definitive references that provides contact information, type of material sought, circulation (for magazines, e-zines), estimated response time, and an encapsulated cornucopia of other useful info for each publisher that authors of poetry will find useful.
Amidst a library of other books that aid authors, Writer’s Digest also publishes “The Writer’s Market” that helps authors of prose and freelancers find a broad range of publishing opportunities. Shop around. WD now even offers a combination Writer’s and Poet’s Market in a searchable online subscription.
For a few bucks more you can order the premium edition of several of their books. These hardcopy editions include a full year of access to their online offering called WritersMarket.com for which you’d otherwise pay a monthly or annual subscription fee. This provides you access to more resources including a somewhat useful submissions tracker (you do track your submissions, don’t you?) and a useful search engine to find just the right market (publication) for your unique work.
If you’re seeking traditional publishing, these comprehensive reference books are also a good source for seeking representation by literary agents (although there is another volume dedicated to just that purpose).
Writer’s Digest books aren’t cheap, but “you don’t get what you don’t pay for.”
If you are an independent author you’ll also find ample inspiration in articles on how to write and promote your labors of love yourself. And insights from peeking over the fence at the traditional side of our industry can never hurt.
BUYER’S TIP: If you’re considering these “market” books that are re-published annually, or are just curious, but aren’t sure about spending thirty bucks a piece, troll the used books stores for editions that are a year or two old.
A lot changes occur from year-to-year, but these “pre-loved” editions are cheap research before spending more. Go ahead. Use them too. Submit a few poems, articles, or short stories as an exploratory measure. It feels good. You can start collecting your own “badges of courage.”
Should you be motivated to purchase your own copies of one or more of Writer’s Digest reputable reference books, you might consider starting your spree at the Writer’s Digest Shop here.
So now we have that “rejection thing” handled, are you interested in reading what “The American Poetry Review” rejected? If so, here we go – in the same format as found in my latest book, “A Narrow Painted Road Seems So…”
Where Goes Mercy?
Author’s advice:
Make sure you’re on dry land when you read this piece. If that’s not possible, I recommend taking refuge in a well-protected anchorage. Or secure your vessel to a stout dock if the weather isn’t too playful for kissing immovable objects.
Sip a stout red wine (in plastic only please, if the deck is dancing) and nibble at a brownie. But be sure not to spill Red Zin on the foredeck. And pick up your crumbs, Mate!
1
Serene white sails, with some red, caress me with reckless
top-heavy breezes, lamenting of portents, not soft, unseen, feckless.
Our sleek little ship embraces her flourishing winds while keening
around lazy jib, mizzen hard and main braced, as if casually leaning
on a cabin’s rough door frame, awaiting the sleepy-eyed watch’s
apologetic invitation to pass smoothly through for a stroll.
The night remains hopeful, confidence high, with steep seas convening…
2
More tender puffs all about us, we shout to the ship for more canvas.
And still she presses insistently onward, bow dives toward blackness,
slower now until microbursts surge and bluster, silk briny-slick
topsides, a foul leaning on quarreling waves, until lurching quick
to leeward, with a dubious but playfully slantwise glance that’s
flush, flirting with grace and soft fury, unfurling contempt kicks…
3
an uproarious force somewhere draws in a deep ominous breath,
that exhales extreme. Still serene, white and red, stay the sails’ heads,
sharper shapes angle in, at once smooth, not a wrinkle, canvas filled.
Ship’s naïve lean ripening to calamitous ill-fortune, dives troughs,
Threatens bursting to gentle dead shreds, no quarter given nor asked
under a gun-metal sky. Her twilight breath screams so meekly until…
4
Now crackling impertinence, impatience, embraces, accelerates —
countered by her tormented keel’s bitter twisting—soon decimates.
This innocent good ship surrenders to such sweet cloying brine,
too much cloth held captive aloft, drives back and far down, climbs
her punctilious way, locked in a lethal embrace with ill-fateful grace,
but for arrogant Spring gales impassioned, a drum-deadly affair…
5
This will not end well. As on a hard-reach, she’s down on a whim,
her heart to be ripped out, wet-holed in dark places, this to be grim,
unless ill-advised quicksilver action best taken in haste,
before drowning in desperation, last-minute gasping, choking faces.
Water I can’t drink fills air I can’t breathe, clear horizons I can’t see,
as a door, with no hinges calls me in to a peaceful, angry embrace…
6
“That vast southern blow did not spank us with rancor after all, did
not visit devastation to ship or our crew, dear-hearted ladies, forbid
that a course by my hand not taken to warm unexplored waters, turned
our stem so sternly to our new course: cold, sharp shoals, confirmed
a path, imperiled our frail little futures, our day’s undoing. So
my lasses, we find deep chilly peace… somehow. We are turned…”
7
Our doomed little ship, serene sails, painted white, a bit of paled red,
now gray and a bit black, cloaked hope just beyond a freshly bled
gun-metal horizon, so ripe for a fight—there’s no match, this ordeal,
a cruel prank that bitter North wind vows her soft granite zeal,
who’s caress felt enchanted, now murmurs into ears that can’t hear,
sings to me a chant so devout, clear passage no longer genteel…
8
Steep tolls extracted, we dared a kiss on her blushed coral cheek.
Soon enough, with innocent guile, will lovingly murder, and wreak
sweet havoc, plunder souls and ships, bright deck to barnacled keel.
Invisible melodies so honeyed, a siren’s transparent white-ballad veil,
from brief lives to grave death, clear passage now clearly denied.
All the while, night, air around us gently crackles. She kills as we kneel…
9
Where goes mercy, as Spring gales rage, with no wholly reason?
When sails honed hard as stone by brutal wind’s forge, bids disbelief
that a thin aging mistress stalks gray sails, all shatter, frail as filigree,
bent iron sheets mashed flat, savage doom ever looming, we see
grave skies convulse, detonates our futile yet valorous surrender:
splits rigging, decks splintering, and three souls aboard. But for me…
10
… before surrendering to our vengeful mother, now a vile menace —
mere courtesan to a bitter grandfather spoiled pious and jealous,
or so it seems—this helmsman, I thought so thoughtful and wise,
by gripping this wheel so firmly to a frayed bitter end, am despised,
frozen in crystal wonder, a bewildered buffoon ponders all creation,
while destruction by this hand, doom pends, still thinking of why’s…
11
Our impulse, winked instants, serene like gauze phosphoresced, as
lungs find briny sorrow, kneel on deck, rest assured, new plans
for conceivable joy that is now near impossibly expressed, we
remember our forlorn regrets, made decisions in tart briny haste, she,
mistress-mother calls, we trusted snow-white mercy, strolling in light.
Five days later the sea’s gravest sanity prevails… serene…
12
So finally, all cast away except white and red tatters, caught
rare flotsam yet floating, and all else that never mattered, floats not.
My helm and both lasses, afore the downed mast, now all promoted
for fate-laden errors swallowed, best intentions in haste, broken
our bane to endurance just dutifully, befittingly unfurled:
helm for poor trim, and doomed crew, trust misplaced, just eroded…
13
None, under splintered hull, bark reprisals, too late condemned,
forgetting those white and dull red admonitions of tempests instead.
Only still-earthbound mariners reflect, may relish with dizzy dismay,
where goes mercy, indeed? Drifting with flotsam on a turbulent sea?
Where newly dead sailors now loll—rest insincere all the day?
Grim gales’ omens flare, as if by accidental bloodthirsty calamity…
14
Desperately serene, our spirits aft the transom, gently descending,
still fathom thin hopeful dreams abandoned—never unending.”
Poet’s Notes: Where Goes Mercy?
Note: A review of all technical poetic nomenclature is offered in the first two chapters of my latest book, “A Narrow Painted Road Seems So…”
The image featured for this piece is a watercolor painting I completed in 2015. I based its mood on my experience from traveling and living aboard sailboats for decades.
This painting embodies emotions conjured from voyages where we, captain and mate, headed into inclement weather on big water, but only when we had no choice. I now dwell on what might have happened.
The image also illustrates too much sail aloft, and for a night passage, no less—an ill-seasoned recipe for quick-changing disaster.
My experience with near-lethal weather weighed on my mind as I composed this piece. Memories of my days as a member and team leader in the US Coast Guard Search and Rescue teams consumed me. After that I drew on my decades of experience as a civilian yachtsman and licensed captain at the helm of my own little ship.
Still vivid in my mind as I labored with high emotion over this piece were those crews on distressed yachts, several of whom never returned to shore. Almost a half century later, some nights I still dream of retrieving bloated and sun-shredded corpses. I often imagine what must have gone through their minds in their final moments on Earth. Bitterness? Futility? Hope? Guilt? Surrender? Some of each? I’m not sure, and I am not that curious. Yet.
However unlikely to expect any ethereal emotion like mercy in moments of crisis from a raging power greater than ourselves, the best of our humanity expects just that. Rational thought notwithstanding, and likely abandoned, this might be the best thinking our distressed lizard brain can muster at or near the end of our tissue paper life.
Through the narrative of this poem, we journey from fair winds and following seas through eroding weather into vicious headwinds. Then we journey onto a foul bottom that holes the ship, killing captain (“helm”) and crew—two young ladies.
Leadership has consequences. Honorable leaders accept them with grace even though they may not understand their larger context.
Offshore sailors understand the most hazardous phase of any voyage is landfall. A recent visit to the Columbia River Maritime Museum in Astoria, Oregon also inspired this narrative. My passion to write this piece intensified after a lengthy hike to the lighthouse on Cape Disappointment, Washington. This volatile coastline is one of the most hostile Winter shores in the world for mariners.
I used the anapestic pentameter rhythm structure with a loose aabbcb near-rhyme pattern. A few lines feature six feet instead of the pentameter’s five. I meant this to symbolize two things. First, six is an important number at sea. It is a unit of measure (of depth or length) called the fathom. Second, every offshore sailor remains vigilant watching for the rare and lethal rogue wave. The occasional longer line suggests those rare dangerous waves.
In the final couplet, as a pun, once again, the number six floats near the surface. Recall a fathom is a measure of water’s depth—six feet. It is also an expression of comprehension.“Our spirits aft the transom, gently descending, / still fathom thin hopeful dreams abandoned, never unending.” And the expression, “aft the transom, gently descending,” paints the morbid image of overboard bodies trailing behind the boat. The boat sails on without them sinking to their doom. Maybe they’re still tethered to their ghost ship, being dragged until all sink together. I know. Grim.
Despite lengthy pentameters (five emphasized syllables per line) in most lines, the narrative keeps pulling the reader forward with a tumbling staccato as if eager to end.
I also meant to moderate the pace of the piece and to add interest through the liberal use of dactyls and trochees. They subdue an otherwise overpowering anapestic and iambic rhythm. Like rogue waves, these variations reflect how a turbulent sea might behave—rough, unpredictable, and choppy. In this way I broke up what otherwise could have been monotonous and hypnotic regularity.
And finally, I’ve made liberal use similes and metaphors throughout the piece. Such is the power and the beauty of poetry. While some phrases might seem strange, don’t be afraid to Google obscure nautical terminology, or just let them wash over you. Don’t forget… you are an advanced reader.
There you have it. Great work, but just not exactly what APR needed at this time. I’m once again free to share this work!
Don’t get me wrong. I will keep submitting, but I feel like this rather substantial piece of work is once again mine to do with what I please.
Can you tell I have mixed feelings about publishing traditionally. That’s just me. I do what I must.
Having said that, never get discouraged by any aspect of your own writing. Why? Because there is only one you, and if you don’t do you, nobody else will.
Rejection “slips” are a visceral reminder that you’re out there in the slugfest, and you are no quitter!
If you found this article useful, you might enjoy others in this blog designed to help other authors and provide “writing life” insights to readers.
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With pen in hand,
Gene
