If "no response" is going be the default we need to send a
cover letter indicating how long we will wait before
assuming the answer is "no".
That's the only problem I have with it, the not knowing how long.
I don't care for longwinded declination slips, especially the
ones that try to reassure the poor poet so that she doesn't
slit her wrists. I recently had one that said "Don't despair"!
I find that insulting.
And rude rejections only reveal the insecurity and arrogance of
the editor.
A simple "No, thank you" suffices, with perhaps an indication
of whether it's worth sending them anything else.
Or if "thank you" is too bourgeois then I'll hope for
the French concrete-poetried "Non" someone mentioned.
(What did they do for "Oui"?)
Janet
> My experience argues that rejection letters themselves are old-fashioned,
> replaced by no response at all. When at the suggestion of the founding
> editor I queried the current editor-in-chief of a hard-copy magazine in
> which I had previously appeared about the fate of my current submission, he
> responded that he was unaware of any editor who wasted valuable time on
> rejected material. Subsequently, having had no response from equally young
> editors to perfectly appropriate contributions to themed issues accompanied
> by a leading cover letter, I assume that my work will not be appearing in
> those two magazines. Barry Alpert
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Janet Jackson <[log in to unmask]>
Poems at Proximity: www dot proximity dot webhop dot net
My life is like a movie
that everyone but me has seen
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