Rejection

Through an odd series of connections, I recently came across the poet Sarah Vap. I have just begun to read her poems but I like them very much, and I also like her essays.

I was reading this interview with Sarah Vap from The Southeast Review and I was struck by one of the questions:

Q: What is your relationship with rejection like?

And her answer:

A: Warm. Tender. Long.

I thought this was such a strange question until I remembered that a writer was asking the questions and another writer was answering--they were speaking about writing being rejected. These questions and answers came to mind yesterday when we returned from our trip to NC to a large stack of mail. One of the envelopes was a self-addressed, stamped envelope.

When you send off your poems to journals, you include a self-addressed stamped envelope. This allows the journal to reply to you efficiently and at no cost to them. Until I actually had a poem accepted somewhere, I figured if your poem was taken, they would write to you with a real envelope. But no, they still just use the one you sent. So when you see an SASE in the mail, if you're me, you know you've gotten an answer about your poems.

I sent off a bunch of poems in October. That's October 2010, eight months ago. Until yesterday, I hadn't heard from two journals from that round of submissions. Well, that's not quite true--I had heard from both that I had reached a second round of selections. So I had hopes that my poems might be taken. Then I came home to this SASE.

As I opened the envelope, I could tell the letter inside was long. So my hopes rose higher. But then my eyes fell on the letter's second sentence:

"Although we are unable to use your work..."

It's a very nice rejection letter. It explains the journal's (it was Calyx, if anyone's interested) editorial process, mentioning that the journal is only able to publish 2-3% of the 1000+ submissions it receives each year. And one of the editors took time to write a personal note at the bottom. She said they really liked my poems, one in particular. "Keep working on the ending," she wrote. "It didn't quite work for us."

It was funny reading that. I really appreciate that this editor took the time to write a personal note. It struck me as a bit workshoppish to say that that the ending "didn't work" for them, but I am glad for an honest response. The irony is that the ending of the poem she was talking about never quite worked for me either. I changed it during the manuscript class I took. It's different now.

Oh well. It was a bummer and I was/am disappointed. But I remembered Sarah Vap's answer about her relationship to rejection: warm, tender, long. As a writer, I certainly expect to have a long relationship with rejection, but it's interesting to think of having a warm and tender one. I was thinking this morning about what she meant by that answer. To me, it must mean to love the process of writing and sharing regardless of the response you receive, and to love your readers regardless of their responses. And maybe above all to love your writing and your writing self regardless of whether your work is "accepted" on any number of levels, literary or otherwise.

Good food for thought for any artist. And as someone who just sent off a manuscript to some very slim-chance contests, I should keep all of this in mind.