Diary of a Mad Editor

The only thing worse than a young, 20-something wannabe poet who believes he is god’s gift to the poetry world is the established 50-something poet who believes he is god’s gift to the poetry world.

Take, for example, Mr. Prolifically Published Poet with 10,000 publication credits to his name. He is a legend in his own mind. The cold truth is that if you live long enough and continue to submit poetry, you will eventually rack up an impressive list of publication credits. Congratulations, Mr. P.P. Poet, you have survived long enough and submitted often enough to have bragging rights to 10,000 publication credits. However, any poet who’s been around for that long ought to have learned that it’s a major error to list damn near every zine, journal or scrap of toilet paper where your work has been published in your cover letter.

Cover letters are your introduction to the editor and, to be honest, it’s better include no cover letter at all than to include a bad one.

What, pray tell, constitutes a good cover letter, you ask?

First, keep your letter short. Understand that your editor is usually overwhelmed with other duties and other submissions to read besides yours. It’s simply bad manners to waste that editor’s time by insisting he read a long, boring cover letter. It’s also condescending. If you are anyone at all in the poetry world, that editor has at least heard of you and is probably familiar with your poems. If you are nobody, listing a bunch of obscure publication credits and tossing in annotated explanations of your poetry will only annoy him.

Second, if the editor doesn’t have a previous working relationship with you, it’s not a good idea to suck-up and assume a familiar tone. If you insist on being personal, limit it to “hi,” or “hello.” The fact that you studied poetry with Normal Nobody, Ph.D. at Dumbass Community College means absolutely nothing and will not score you any brownie points.

Third, do not hype your poems. This will likely backfire on you. Telling an editor that your poems are the greatest thing since the invention of the wheel, will heighten the editor’s expectations and inevitably disappointment will follow — and who do you think the editor will take his disappointment out on?

A good, useful cover letter should consist of the following:

1. Your name and address at the top of the page (this is especially important if you’ve neglected to include this information on the poems themselves).

2. Dear (editor’s name):

3. quantity and/or titles of poems you are submitting.

4. Optional statement either about yourself or the magazine you are submitting to. “I really enjoyed so-and-so’s poem in your last issue.” Brief, and informal without crossing the line into a long-winded bull session.

5. A few recent publication credits. Again, don’t waste paper with a long list of publications or name-dropping.

6. Thank you/ look forward to hearing from you.

7. Sincerely,

8. (your name).

That’s it. That’s all there is to it.

Can you dig it?

I knew that you could.

This may seem absurd, but it’s really much easier to imitate another poet than it is to write like oneself. Mind you, I’m not saying it’s easier to write EXACTLY like another poet, but it isn’t much of a trick to copy the style of another and throw in a few hip cultural references. It’s a damn sight easier then it is to write a credible, original poem.

Not so long ago, I was sitting in the audience at a poetry slam and a very young man from Providence, RI read a piece which borrowed from Ginsberg’s “America” almost to the point of plagiarism. It was so bad that it only served to remind me what a great poem Ginsberg’s version is. But, to add to the Kafkaesque mood of the evening, another young poet read his own version of “America” later in the night. Imagine that? Right now, there are probably thousands of poets re-writing Ginsberg, or Bukowski, or Amiri Baraka, etc. Don’t get me wrong, imitation, while it may or may not be the sincerest form of flattery, is certainly how we learn technique. The trouble is, many poets nowadays stop at this stage and never grow beyond it. Ah, but I can see that some of you are scratching your head and saying, “What comes after technique?”

Craft is certainly important, but it isn’t everything. Picture, if you will a big steaming pile of dog crap. Now, imagine that one were to sculpt that mound into a perfect representation of Micheangelo’s “David.” What you have isn’t by any means a work of art — what you have is a steaming mound of dog crap that happens to look like something artistic. Pick up almost any available poetry journal at your local Barnes & Noble and you will discover a lot of dog crap.

It is an increasingly rare event to encounter a poet who’s graduated beyond craft to the point where he has truly found his own voice and learned how to get inside the head of a poem. Have I lost you again? Okay, “getting inside the head of a poem” is a term I use for that place of heightened understanding of what the poem’s really about, how the message can best be expressed and precisely which techniques from among the many you’ve amassed over the years, you will need to communicate your poem to your audience.

A poem is like a conversation between two friends. Have you ever observed the dynamic of such a conversation? Usually, each person involved is vying for dominance. When one person speaks, the other person is only half-listening and is usually annoyed. She wants to be the one talking. And, when she is talking the other is only half-listening and is annoyed. You see, what is being said isn’t really important. It’s what is left unsaid. It’s the body language, the turn of a wrist, and the movement of the eyelids that tell us what is important. The body language reveals what is happening in the person’s psyche. In poetry, as in conversation, it is the voice that you are afraid to use and the mannerisms involved in the deception which are important. Craft is just a tool, a means to an end. Without a true voice, craft is just a worthless exercise.

“. . .can you tell me why people say *could care less* when they (almost always) mean *COULDN’T care less*? (i.e. *I already care as little as it is possible to care*.)” – Rebecca Henry Lowndes

Funny that Rebecca should choose to fixate on that particular phrase. How do I respond to this? Is it worth responding to? Yes, I think it is.

Sure, when someone says, “could care less,” he literally intends that he “could not care less.” On the surface, it would seem much more proper to say, “couldn’t care less,” wouldn’t it? But, the English language is a funny thing. Sometimes up is down and black is white. Sometimes, being proper is entirely inappropriate.

For example, if Jerk-off Joe, now starving in Las Vegas, had said, “My girlfriend left me and I COULDN’T care less,” would you believe him? Seriously. “Couldn’t” has that “T” on the end. Kind of gives it a little bite, doesn’t it. Maybe even sounds a little angry. Sounds like Jerk-off Joe hasn’t really gotten over her, and with Valentine’s Day coming up and all, that’s got to suck.

Now, if Joe had said, “Man,I could care less about my ex. Las Vegas has some serious babe-traffic.” He sounds positively cavalier, doesn’t he? Like he truly could not care less. I believe him, don’t you?

Learning the rules of proper usage is important –don’t misunderstand me. Through grammar, we learn structure. However, I’ve never met a grammar nazi who could write worth a damn. The rules are there as a guide and nothing more. Michael Jordan didn’t learn how to fly from a rule book, and you won’t learn to write well by following the rules of grammar as if they were absolute gospel. Your job as a writer is to communicate to the widest audience possible, to make them believe. Sometimes, in order to do that, you have to show them you can fly.