Douglas Barbour wrote:
> Ha! You're not alone, Joanna, as so many poets have told me that, & I
> often found it to be so too. So I took great pride once when a poet
> told me I was the only editor who had ever taken the poems he thought
> were the best in his package.
Sander Zulauf did that for me in Journal of New Jersey Poets. Took the
right ones, the ones I thought were good before I sent them out. I
believe I was told: park them where they are read first. Maximize your
chances. I did and I did and he did.
> On the other hand, Ken, I don't find it insulting that editors think
> it might be a good idea to check out their publications (even at a
> library if possible; & certainly online when they're there) before
> sending material in to them, as 'you' might just be writing the kind
> of work they don't even consider....
It takes me back again to my recurring nightmare, the Little Black Book
or some sort of DaVinci code. Seriously--what am I supposed to be
looking for? I haven't the foggiest notion why some of my poems have
worked out as submissions and some have come back before I sent them.
Are we talking about visual appearance, lineation, or content...the last
a word that can encompass almost anything from metaphysics to political
point of view. Though yes, if I have something I am particularly hot to
get placed (and I do), I will do the homework. But I will not, as one
editor once suggested, tone down words to make them less offensive. Oh
hell...an old poem of mine, I used the word "Jewess" twice. It's a
gross word to modern ears. The person thinking the word, however, is a
Swedish foot soldier in the 30 Years' War. What would he have thought
before he rapes her--"Female of the Hebraic persuasion"? The editor
said "Would you use 'Negress'?" I replied "If I were writing an
historical piece based before 1930, you're damn right I would." It
never got worked out.
One for _The New Yorker_: a novel set in Delft, Holland in 1665 called
"Oppressed Female Child-Labor Wage-Slave Womyn with a Pearl Earring"?
Back to my heatstroke if you please.
Ken
--
Kenneth Wolman
Proposal Development Department
Room SW334
Sarnoff Corporation
609-734-2538
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