Diary of a Mad Editor

Judging from the response to my last column, I take it no one cared for my last installment. So be it. Like I care.

In all honesty, I think most of the people who’ve dealt with me over the last several years have found me to be both professional and generous with my time. But, let’s not misunderstand anything here. My behavior towards them is a direct result of how they present themselves to me. My first year in business, I received a little over 1500 submissions. I now receive ten times that number. Factor in the individuals who have come up to me at poetry readings to shove a notebook in my face and you are talking about a flow of paper that no one human being could handle while holding down a full-time day job and trying to have some kind of life. Yet, by budgeting my time and generally surrendering my time when needed, I manage. Still, I only have about two functional hours per day to wade through submissions. My time is precious. Serious writers respect this and don’t usually waste it. Most of them know better. Those who don’t learn and they can learn the easy way (reading my guidelines) or they can learn the hard way ( a verbal bitch-slapping). What irks people, I imagine, is that my axe swings in all directions. I don’t single-out the beginners. You’d be shocked at some of the things I’ve said to more experienced writers. I remember this one fairly well-known poet who submitted his poems with sticky notes instructing me on how to forward his poems to other editors when I was done with them. Can you imagine my reaction to that? The difference between being a serious poet and being a wannabe is not the line drawn between the beginner and the widely published laureate. It is, rather, a mentality one assumes when one submits work to a publication. The line drawn between wanting recognition as a “poet” and being completely serious about your poetry.

When I submit my own work to a publication, I always operate under the belief that the editor is king of his kingdom and I am but a wandering troubadour trading song for bread. I know my place in the food chain. It would not occur to me to be disrespectful or assume a negative attitude with an editor. It would not occur to me to ignore the guidelines especially if they were as clearly spelled-out as mine are. If I don’t like the editorial guidelines or the publication, I simply will not submit and I understand that it doesn’t matter to that editor whether I submit or not. There are more poets than there are places to publish. So, take your work elsewhere and good luck to you.

The wannabe doesn’t understand this because he is not interested in serious creativity. For him, it is all about stroking his ego. “I’m THE POET,” he declares. With the more established poet,like the guy with the sticky notes, it manifests itself in the belief that because he has this number of publication credits and won this or that award, he somehow is above the need to present himself in a respectful manner. He wants you to bow down before him. He has forgotten that he wouldn’t be “THE POET” if it weren’t for dedicated individuals like our lowly editor who believed in him and his work and gave him a chance once upon a time.

With the beginner, this usually manifests itself as a demand for attention. His poetry is a form of trite exhibitionism that’s sickening for any serious person to read. He’s not interested in writing better; he just wants your approval. For example, a couple of years ago, the 50+ year old man started a correspondence with me. He had been writing since his early twenties and had never had anything published. He held onto this illusion that the publishing world was against him and that it was who you know and not what you wrote which was the measure of success or failure. He thought that if he sucked-up to me, I’d publish him. So, after months of stroking MY ego, he finally took a chance and submitted four poems. I accept one of the poems because I genuinely liked it and it was short. The other three poems were amateurish at best. I put the one poem in my accepted file and sent the other three back to him with a scathing, but accurate critique. You would think he would have been happy to have his poem accepted after so many years of failure, but all he cared about was that I didn’t like his other poems and dared to tell him so. A couple months after, he sent me those three poems again, this time accompanied by a glowing acceptance letter from the National Library of Poetry. Well, if a prestigious organization like the NLP thinks he’s a genius, obviously I must be mistaken, right? He was angry with me because I was so brutally honest with him. He loved the NLP because they lied to him. The irony here, is that the NLP makes its money by publishing bad poetry and selling their books to their own contributors. Only a wannabe could so easily be fooled. He just wanted the love he was denied as a child — poor baby!

“Love me, daddy,” he says. “Give me cookies, daddy,” he cries. And if you don’t give him his cookies: “I hate you! I wish you were dead!”

You know what I say to that?

!SMACK!

“Who’s your daddy, now?”

There are many things that will immediately send me rushing for the aspirin bottle (or the whiskey bottle) when I am evaluating a manuscript. Failure to include a self-addressed stamped envelope with postal submissions is a biggie. The money I hand over to the post office during a 12-month period is outrageous enough without footing the bill for unsolicited submissions. And god help you if you send me something postage due.

I don’t like pages that are folded individually or pages that are in any way illegible. I don’t like pages that smell like they’ve been dipped in feces.

I don’t like it when the envelope is wrapped in so much packing tape that it requires major surgery to open it.

I don’t like amateur writer who submit links to their homepages and actually think I’m going to visit and read their fucking poetry.

I don’t like file attachments for many reasons — not the least of which is that this is the way most PC viruses are spread.

But mostly, I just can’t stand it when someone completely disregards my submission guidelines even after reading them. It’s not only a waste of my time, it’s disrespectful to all the other people who’ve submitted who do follow those guidelines.

Case in point:

From: Beverly A Hall
To: theeditor@asteriuspress.com
Sent: Thursday, February 15, 2001 6:25 PM
Subject: Submission

Message: (blank screen, file attached)

Reply:

Read my guidelines (link provided)

My guidelines clearly state, “Electronic submissions encouraged and should be sent as text in the message body with “submission” as the subject header. No file attachments please. ”

Reply to my reply:

From: Beverly A Hall
To: theeditor@asteriuspress.com
Subject: Re: [Fwd: submissions]

Dear jce,

I read the guidelines before submitting the poems. What did I miss, the cover letter?

Respectfully,

B.A. Hall

My reply to her reply to my reply:

john Erianne wrote:

NO FILE ATTACHMENTS

Her Reply to my reply to her reply to my reply:

Dear Sir,

This letter is to query regarding your submissions policy for poetry. I read the guidelines online, but apparently missed something that you require. For some reason, there was no response to my last e-mail regarding this issue. Please respond at your earliest convenience.

Respectfully,

B.A. Hall

I look over to the three mean stacks of submissions I still have yet to wade through and I sigh. Apparently, one does not require higher brain function to call oneself a poet these days

.

Last Saturday, I took part in a symposium entitled “The Power of Poetry.” The discussion was made-up mostly of poets who took part in the readings that were held that day, but was open to the public. One among the non-poets attending was a schizophrenic woman. Have you ever engaged in conversation with a paranoid schizophrenic? It’s a trip around the world, let me tell you. It occurred to me that engaging in dialogue with young wannabe poets is often similar. Case in point:

A young man, who had read some of my “mad editor” articles, decided to try me with a submission. He e-mailed three untitled poems lumped together on the page as if they were one long rambling poem. I gave him a harsh, line-by-line critique in which i basically pointed out that his choice of language indicated to me that he was a racist. However, before I replied to him, I covered my rear by forwarding the poem to two other editors whose opinions I respected. So, I not only got a second opinion, but a third as well. Listen, I’m not going to accuse someone of racism unless I am confident. The two other editors concurred with my opinion. Now, given my history, I expected hate mail. Instead of hate mail, the young man sent a long rebuttal informing me that his poems were actually intended to mean the opposite of what I got from the poems. He also sent another submission for me to critique. The following is a dialogue both with the young man and the poem itself:

All right, here comes the pain:

2: SUBMISSION: take two

1.

You shoplifted my dreams

(sounds like a line from a country and western song)

with your K-mart culture

(the phrase ‘k-mart culture’ might be interesting in another context)

made a mockery of life;
over two billion sold.

(That’s mcdonald’s not k-mart. don’t confuse the two).

Now all my emotions
are a media circus;

(oh lord)

there’s a new advertisement
for my every desire.
Can you exploit all my feelings
while I’m brushing my teeth?

(huh?)

When I’m doing my laundry you expect me to care.
You anoint my involvement
in life with a price tag;
my every breath is a profit,
and the prices are cheap

(What the fuck?)

2.

I don’t want to go outside
I don’t even want to get out of bed

(“i don’t wanna grow up, i’m a toys ‘r’ us kid…”)

to go out into that cold and distant world

(Had a girlfriend named cliche once… she’d been used by lots of guys and it showed).

I’d like to have it all done for me
right here in the comfort
of warm blankets and soft sheets
the dim, dark peace of pillows
to smother my mind
I could turn on the television
to find out more about the giant rock
falling on our heads
going to smash our little world
but it wouldn’t tell me
I’d just get stuck in cartoon dreams
> and Gilligan lies.

( i think you watch too much television).

3.

I drink myself into a stupid

(Bear with me, i’m trying to visualize this)

acting like a child

(“I don’t wanna grow up, i’m a toys ‘r’ us kid…” Oops, that line’s been used before, hasn’t it?)

an innocense deranged

(Webster’s Dictionary, there is no substitute)

I feed the flames at midnight

(Is that a low-cholesterol diet?)

thinking of your kiss
fleeing to the never ending beerlight

(What the hell is a beerlight? Do you mean, “bar”? if so, why not simply say, “bar”?)

you like the way I stare?

(Actually, no, I was thinking that you are seriously disturbed and I was planning to ask the bouncer to walk me to my car.)

becoming more concrete

(And for my next trick, i will turn into a garden gnome named Bob.)

trying to catch the light

on my naked skin
They’ll be no darkness tonight
you’ve seen to that my love
my never ending dove

(You’re kidding, right?)

lifting your head
into the thrill of my sloppy off-handed kiss

(Hmm, i don’t think he’s kidding)

and you slip inside me

(This reminds me of that movie X-tro)

thrill me
maybe
maybe even kill me
and in the sun
the burning awful sun

(this reminds me of that movie, A Man Called Horse.)

I can wear you as disguise

(if she’s slipped inside you, how can you wear her as a disguise? Are you talking about someone who’s driven you to drink or the act of drinking itself — if so, your metaphors hardly illuminate. )

to hide the things I know were true
the words I never thought I knew
and all because of you,
all because I loved you.

(oo, oo, oo!)

Again i appreciate your comments, although i admit that the last ones left me hating my own work. still, i hear growth can be painful that way.

————————————————–
So, now I’m starting to think about my conversation with the schizophrenic woman and the disjointed nonsense she was spewing. “…you know that movie about the spiders, arachnaphobia, and it was about spiders and then there was the world wide web and then everytime somebody died they saw spiders…” Well, you get the idea. She was speaking her own language, one that couldn’t be translated into anything resembling good sense.

————————————————–
So our young poet can’t just take his medicine. No, he replies with yet another long-winded defense explaining what his poems are really about:

“sorry, if i am trying your patience but in some sick way i really do appreciate your responses 1. yes i know the quote is mcdonalds, i was mixing more than just one icon of bland american consumerism in a poem about commercials”

(I gathered that. what i was saying is that your attempt didn’t really work)

“the lines you didnt understand were referring to commercials like’use tide detergent because you love your kids’ i’m paraphrasing, but that was the basic gist of that commercial.”

(it’s not that I didn’t understand — i just thought your lines were horrible)

2. if you take everything literally its not fucking poetry-in the second piece i am showing the laziness of our culture, not my own personal laziness-our fixation with vapid tv programs, and how tv ignores much of what really is going on in the world, instead pandering to the desire for the aforementioned vapid meaningless sitcoms.

(Yet you watch these very programs… does anyone else see the irony? Try reading a book once in awhile).

3. again, if i thought i was going to have to tell everything to people in blindingly simple neon infomercials i wouldnt be doing !@$$-ing poetry!

(Trust me when i tell you, you haven’t yet written !@$$-ing poetry)

“the third piece is a love poem for beer.”

(What, are you doug mckenzie?)

“as for why i didnt just say bar, it rythmically didnt fit for me at the time.”

(And you know exactly what about rhythm?)

“but you DID still understand what i meant right?”

(Just because i understood it, doesn’t make it a good, useful line You forget, I’m used to reading bad poetry. It’s like deciphering a teacher’s writing in class. Just because you can translate the hieroglyphics doesn’t make the handwriting anything more than chicken scratch. My ability to understand says more about my expertise than yours.)

“the sloppy offhanded kiss refers to casually lifting the glass to the mouth;therefore, “slipping inside me” refers to the alcohol going physically into my body, and the line of “burning awful sun” refers naturally to the morning after, when i get told about all the things i might have said, but i blame my words and actions on the beer, thereby wearing it as a disguise. and, well ok i admit the “becoming more concrete” part was a bit obscure, its mainly just a bit of surrealistic thought that came to mind when i was drunk once, actually come to think of it i’m pretty sure i was drunk when i wrote it.”

(that doesn’t surprise me)

” i figure that gives the whole poem a bit of validity, and if it comes off as drunken ramblings i guess i can’t help but be pleased.”

(Drunken ramblings that come off as drunken ramblings? I’d be shocked if it came across as anything else. even bukowski, drunk that he was, didn’t write under the influence. don’t be so pleased — you might have put those lost brain cells to better use).

“at this point i have to mention that in fact, i think > marylin manson IS a fairly decent poet.”

(Hey, he’s a character and an okay rock star. he’s not a poet. if you think he is, you haven’t read nearly enough poetry.)

Here’s what you can do to improve:

1. read everything: poetry, fiction, history, philosophy, etc. cut down on your tv consumption — it’s rotting your brains.

2. stop submitting for awhile. you are not ready for prime time –dig? And as long as you believe your writing is defensible, you will not grow. publication should never be your goal, anyway. There are more bad writers with publication credits than good writers without them.

3. stop trying so hard to be clever in your writing — you are not very good at it. Your poems simply do not communicate well. Writing can be simple without losing it’s underlying complexity and depth of meaning.

4. Get over the idea that rock singers are poets or you will just end up with a compilation of bad song lyrics.

5. Attend some open mics and read your stuff in front of an audience. you’d be surprised what you can learn from the experience. don’t waste your time with another long rebuttal because i won’t bother torespond to it. If you do submit, you will receive the standard form rejection.

Well, Rilke, I am not. This guy, doesn’t get it. If you write a poem so obscure as to require a separate piece of writing to explain it, that’s a sure hint for you that you are doing something wrong. Clarity. Clarity. Clarity. Every letter of every word of every line of every stanza MUST justify itself. Poetry isn’t supposed to be obscure and it’s the failure of the poet –not the reader if the poem is unclear in it’s meaning.