Quite literally today – bucketing down, blowing a hooley, and thunder and lightning to boot. But also figuratively, in terms of published poems and aphorisms. Five more poems this time.
In 2025 I have adopted a target for number of rejections, which I call the Declinometer. It’s partly a tactic to cope with rejection letters, but more importantly to encourage myself to submit more and hence pay even more attention to crafting the work.
One of the tools I use for crafting is to record myself reciting a poem. It shows up the most obvious flaws, and also makes me consider how I might present it to a group or audience. So it was nice to hear of an online poetry magazine that also publishes audio with the text. I thought I’d give it a go, and submitted three. Usually I expect submissions to disappear into a swirling vortex of unknowing for weeks if not months. Then when I’ve given up hope of ever hearing back, they are spat out again with an affirmation of my despair with words like ‘we enjoyed reading them but we couldn’t place them’. This time they popped out onto the Wildfire Words website almost within the day.
Then yesterday I heard from Ink Sweat and Tears that a haiku I submitted for a possible feature on New Year’s Day was due to be published online this morning. Small but mighty, as IS&T are well-respected.
And finally, Christian Century accepted a poem back in May, but then it sank back into the Vortex of Unknowing. Today I was rummaging on their website for something else, and it occurred to me to do a search. I discovered that they had published my poem online early in December. I’m very happy with this one – it’s in some great company – and am looking forward to its emergence in print in January. I expect the editor will let me know at some point.
