an original painting
Failure is not an option I strive for – not a lofty goal – but just recently, I was thrilled by the validation of the rejection of my poetry.
At first, I thought it was probably a generic letter of some sort that they send to everyone. The rather un-imposing looking email had a personal salutation, and here’s what it said:
Thank you for entering “Reflection in Cinquain” in the Poetry Contest. We were grateful for the opportunity to read and consider your work, and we regret that your entry was not one of our winners or finalists this time.
An announcement of the winning poets will soon go out to the magazine’s readership, and in late October, we will publish the winning poems, which include works by notable new and emerging poets.
We continue to look for engaging new poets to publish, and we hope you will keep [XXXXXXXMagazine] in mind for your work in the future.
Again, thank you for your entry, and please accept our kind wishes. Sincerely, The Editors
I’m not including the name of the magazine and bracketed the change. But believe me, it’s one that’s highly regarded and ranks third in my list of publications I want to be accepted in. My first choice would be Poetry followed by The Writer’s Almanac. I’m one of those “aim-for-the-stars” people, in case you didn’t know, so you can imagine how ecstatic this rejection made me.
Skeptic that I am, though, I immediately checked my online submission’s account with them to confirm if it had the familiar word PASS. Their email included the title of my poem that was being rejected so I just knew it would be passed on in their database. But no – it still had the note “Under Consideration.” This had to be a real honest-to-goodness rejection – not a computerized rejection.
To share my elation at rejection, I started to write a blog post. Since I’ve been remiss in checking my blog stats and in writing updates – I immediately noticed there was a large influx of visits on the Friday before the date of my personal email rejection. Since I had not posted recently and had done nothing to direct anyone to my blog, this seemed to further validate that the email was truly a personal rejection. They must have checked out my blog
My work – personally rejected.
I’m thrilled at this point. It’s like I’ve almost arrived! Who knew the thrill of rejection could be so sweet?
And to top it off an article arrived right after my rejection 6 Signs You’re Getting Closer to Publication which now gives me a list to check off. And I had a non-fiction piece accepted in a smaller publication The Write Place at the Write Time And a few days later the database was updated-and “Reflection In Cinquain” fell into the unnotable, darkened PASS category with my other rejections. But for a few moments, a glint of light named “almost” gave me hope, keeps me writing!
Taylorspeak 