Writing update - Poetry

 

I have a policy on my review blog, where I also post writing updates of being open and frank about the rejection treadmill.  I record my feelings for posterity but also so that I can go back and examine what it took to get a story/poem to its successful conclusion.  Too often we look at the end product and wonder how the author or poet made it look so easy.  The truth being of course that it’s never that easy.  Joe Halderman’s famous The Forever War received 19 rejections before it was published and there are countless other stories.

Work is keeping me busy but I have found time to pen two poems and submit them in the past couple of weeks. And today decided to kick my arse into gear for a short story prize - The Carmel Bird Award.

So on the poetry front I picked up a rejection from the magazine I sent Bad Ground (my Cthulu-esque/weird poem) to.  They were very kind in their rejection and gave positive feedback, so I am taking the rejection as an indication that I am on the right track and I just need to keep going/refining. 

After taking said poem along to my writing group (after I subbed) who gently teased it apart I was worried that It might get published and it wouldn’t be as good as I can see it becoming.  So, close call there (and what a way to rationalize a rejection).

So how’s your poetry going?