This is my worst rejection story. The very first time I sent poetry to _Poetry_ magazine, I was rejected with a nice handwritten note from Jay Parisi, the editor. Encouraging, I thought, a handwritten note and not a generic slip. Must have been in an acceptance stack for a while. A couple months later, I spoke with Kate Light, a New York poet who had just attended a workshop with Parisi. Parisi was apparently using one of my poems, without my approval, as an example of a poem that "almost made it but not quite," and the class was encouraged to analyze why he had rejected it. Couldn't do anything but fiction for a couple months after that ...
So, Erin, be glad it was a generic rejection. ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
