If I accept a poem, all is well. People name their first-born children after 32 Poems. There were 64 babies named “32″ this year.
When I solicit people, I say upfront that I might not take their poems. My note says something about how I can promise a careful read even if I can’t promise publication. My goal with that line is to give the poet a chance to say “no thanks” if they fear rejection after a solicitation. I also aim to set their expectation. I’ve heard stories of poets getting angry and annoyed — certainly, no editor wants that — when getting their poems rejected after a solicitation. Trust me, it hurts an editor to say no. We are not rejecting poems and then performing happy dances to celebrate.
If I don’t take a poem, then I write a NICE note to explain why. I invite the poet to send more poems and to send more soon.
I try to show respect to the poet throughout the entire process. I can take a long time to respond. John Poch, our editor, does not take as long as I do. I let the poet know I am slow to read and invite them to submit elsewhere if they are in a hurry to publish. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t. On occasion, a poem is accepted elsewhere and that is sad for me. However, I feel it is only fair to let the poet send elsewhere if I am going to take a long time to get to it. For me, a long time is over two months.
One reason I may say no to the work of a poet I solicit is when the new work is nothing like what I’ve been reading and like what I had loved. This usually means that only between three and five poems did not speak to me. Often, a number of other poems the poet wrote DID speak to me and that is why I asked, yet sometimes people are insulted anyway.
Hopefully, I do not become the poet’s enemy for not taking a poem. After all, I am publishing this journal that supports and promotes poetry, and how many people are insane enough to do that? But that is another topic for another day.
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I spent many, many years laboring in the vineyard of literary magazines; I solicited work from many writers; I sometimes turned solicited work down. No one ever was so discourteous as to say they had any kind of serious problem with that process (whether they stuck pins in Hummer dolls in the privacy of their own basements I can’t say, but they may have been doing that anyway, rejection or no). You are correct that it is necessary to be clear about the “terms” of the solicitation as you make it. If the writer then sends work, he or she implicitly (if not explicitly) accepts those terms, and that is that. One hopes that everyone on all sides is an adult and will behave accordingly.
I have been on the other end of such transactions as well, and I am always careful to say, when sending to a soliciting editor, “if you want any of these you are welcome to them; if you don’t, that’s fine: business as usual.” The responsibility to behave well is a duty of all parties involved. If someone takes a rejection of carefully solicited material with ill will, they are probably someone who would have ended up your “enemy” (if that’s the right word) in any case, for some reason or another.
I suppose this boils down to the following: if an editor solicits work carefully and responsibly, and the “solicitee” understands the terms, then there should be no problem either way. Simple enough, in theory at least, but the question is well worth thinking about.
Deb,
I agree. And sometimes people don’t always send their best work because maybe they feel as if they already have an “in.”
I think you are completely right on in saying yes or no. Being asked to submit is an invitation to the party, it’s not announcing to your guest in advance that she’s being crowned homecoming queen.
my 2 cents.
I think you actually linked to my post back in the day about Jason Bredle when he had something on his website about it. Unfortunately, it seems like I was the idiot who caused him to take his website down because of that. I call myself an idiot because I like his work so much and now I don’t have a link to everything Bredle.
That said, I wonder what prompted you to talk about this interesting issue. Have you had people annoyed lately because you solicited them and then ultimately rejected their work? I always know going in that though the chances may be better than the slush pile, there’s never a guarantee.
I think you bring up a good point also about work changing. People could be working on other books, chapbooks, projects etc. And the poems you saw in journal X or book X could be very different from what they’re working on when they actually send you work because of your solicitation.
Anyway, a great post. I’ll probably end up writing a blog post and linking back to this issue, because even though I’m not an editor in any way currently (except of my own work, and even then I’m not a very good one), it’s always interesting to get others’ opinions, since solicitation does seem to happen often, and it’s something not a lot of people talk about.
Hey,
Kelli makes a good point. They send the stuff they have had the hardest time placing elsewhere.
Plus, some places work on committee with a whole bunch of people reading, and it just doesn’t get through the meeting. Maybe the subject matter is close to another poem that’s already been accepted for the issue. Maybe it just doesn’t fit the feel you’ve developed with what’s already been taken.
Poets who get bent about not begin taken after solicitation are simply making damn sure they never get solicited again. If they get really angry and hostile about it, they’re also doing an excellent job of making sure at least one less person keeps reading–and recommending–their work.
The right thing to do is to suck it up, say “thank you,” and resubmit next time.
Adam’s last sentence is what you should do when you receive a rejection anyway!
Andrew — Agreed!
Keith — I don’t recall linking to a similar article. Maybe I did. To address your curiosity, I brought up the subject because someone was discussing it on a poetry forum. It never crossed my mind that someone I might solicit would think I would automatically take their work, so the conversation opened my eyes to that sentiment.
T.R. — I do something similar when I respond to a solicitation. I give the editor an out and assure them I’ll have no hard feelings. Since I know how this works from both sides, I can understand if they feel awkward when they say no.
The issue is soliciting responsibly and carefully, as TR mentions, and being professional about it. I’ve been solicited and rejected over a dozen times over the past two years. I always submitted my best work because that’s the work I want published (as opposed to weak stuff because I think I have an “in” – why would I want to publish anything I think isn’t my best, anyway?). I think that if an editor writes you a personal note about what a big fan he or she is of your work, it’s not in good taste to send a form letter rejection with no explanation as if that initial correspondence had never happened. It’s not about thinking you’ll definitely be published just because you’ve been solicited – it’s about having a courteous correspondence. When I’m solicited by an editor and then rejected by an editor and the correspondence has been polite and well-intentioned, I’m happy.
That is true. I would also not want to publish anything that wasn’t my best.