Diary of a Mad Editor

I must admit, I was in a pretty decent mood yesterday. Thursday morning, at a routine doctor’s appointment, I was given another good report and I got some quality work done on my laptop at the county library. Later, I caught-up with a couple of friends downtown and engaged in a line of conversation that inspired me quite a bit. Had a good meal for dinner. Good health, good works, good friends, good food — I was on a roll, but I knew that warm fuzzy feeling couldn’t last. What the fuck? It’s December. The weather’s getting colder and the nights longer.

However, after dinner, while reading new messages cluttering my inbox, I came upon a message from a disgruntled poet I’d rejected a few days ago. A guy named James Kirk (No, not Star Trek Kirk) had sent me this poem that I wasn’t too keen on publishing:

From:
To: theeditor@asteriusonline.com
Sent: Saturday, November 22, 2008 6:56 PM
Subject: Submission

Dear Mr. Erianne:
Please find attached as RTF a single poem entitled “Imaginary Place” for your consideration. I thank you for the opportunity to submit and for your time and consideration in this matter.
Sincerely,
James Kirk

Upon being underwhelmed by the single poem he’d sent, I replied with this form response:

From:theeditor@asteriusonline.com
To:
subject: RE: Submission

Thank you for your interest in Asterius Press. Unfortunately, I cannot use
your writing. Best of luck placing it elsewhere.

— JCE

Okay, it is a form response, but is not impolite or mean-spirited. Certainly, it wasn’t the kind of thing that warranted a rude, ignorant response (or any response at all, for that matter), but this is how Mr. Kirk chose to respond:

From:
To: theeditor@asteriusonline.com
Subject: From Bob Hicock

Fuck you! How’s that for prosody!

Now it’s not really a novel thing for me to get responses like this from some writers. Some rejected writers react to rejection in the most unprofessional manner possible. Initially, I considered that this James Kirk guy might be an alias for some turd who had a grudge (think Michael Pritsos, B.T. Manheim et. al.), but didn’t want me to know his true identity (it’s happened before — again coughcough Michael Pritsos coughcough). The poem he’d sent was pretty mediocre, but it was mediocre in a way that made me think he was just trying to get something past me because he is one of those jerks who thinks ezines have a lower quality standard than print literary publications do. The guy never included a bio and I didn’t really know anything about him just from the name. So, a little while ago, I did a reverse search on the email address to see who it would turn-up, thinking that it would point to someone I’d dealt with in the past who was having a little fun at my expense. Afterall, there are lots of listings for “James Kirk” around the Internet. There are a lot of listings on Poetry.com, alone, but none of those James Kirks’ poems were anything like what I was sent and had rejected — for one thing those poems were all rhymers and the one I rejected was not. What shocked me was that the James Kirk that my search turned up was a poet who lives in my own back yard (well, close enough to it) and not only has some decent publication credits under his belt as well has being a 2-time winner of a grant from the New Jersey Arts Council, but a guy who teaches writing at the college level. What shocked me wasn’t that such an educated, widely published academic poet could produce something as mediocre as what was sent to me, but that such an educated, widely-published poet would be so uncouth as to respond to a rejection in such an immature manner. A newbie doing something like that, you can understand because they’re insecure and don’t really know any better. Some frustrated asshole who’s tried and failed to get published year after year — okay, sure, I can understand that even if I don’t like it. But a seasoned poet who’s been widely published in reputable places, who lives in that publish or perish world of academia? Whose career lives or dies by how many poems he places and can ill afford to alienate literary editors. A guy who has probably received lots of rejection slips in his day, who fucking well knows the drill? What is this fool’s problem? And what is that “From Bob Hicock” bit about? I like much of Bob Hicock’s poetry — at least what I’ve read of it. But what does Bob Hicock have to do with my rejection of James Kirk? Is this some attempt at a witty retort and I’m just missing it? A poor attempt at a joke? Or is this guy simply fucking retarded?

In my confusion I replied to his reply, poking him a bit so that he’d elaborate and, thus, clear-up my confusion: “You’re kidding me, right? I sincerely hope you can do better than this.”

So far he hasn’t responded. I’m thinking he probably won’t but, if he does, I’m surely going to post his response on this blog. In any event: James Kirk, Merry Fucking Christmas to you too, buddy!