Unexpected Movements

I’m currently writing from the Oregon coast where I am attending a writing retreat with two friends.

It has been a fantastic weekend, filled with laughter, deep conversations about relationships and partnership, whale watching excursions, delicious food, and yes, a lot of writing. I’ve completed three more rounds of revisions on my book of sonnets, and I’m even more happy with them now than I was before I got here. So, it has been a very successful retreat.

In another way, too, it has been successful and that is in the sending-work-out-for-publication way. Starting last week when the sonnets began to take shape, I decided to start sending some of them out for publication consideration. I used to submit my work to three places every week, and then every time I got a rejection, I’d send them out to three more. But since my MFA, I have fallen away from that practice.

I had only 3 active submissions in my Submittable page before last week. Now, I have 31.

I know this seems like a not-so-big-a-deal, but for me, it’s a sign of movement forward. Because I have not always given my poetry a chance to thrive in the literary world. And even though I have had individual poems published, and despite having a whole ass poetry book traditionally published, I still struggle to believe my work is good enough. And not just good enough for some nebulous silhouette of a human being on the other side of the submission process, but good enough for my readers, and good enough for me.

Because here is a truth that is not often spoken about the traditional publishing world: publishers (and I think this is especially true of publishers of poetry) can be elitist. I understand that being critical of someone’s work is part of the process, and it isn’t even that that bothers me so much as the elevated sense of superiority that too often comes with it. And because poetry is so diverse, one would think it would be easy for poets to find homes for their work.

I have found that poetry is the hardest genre to find homes for.

So, today I took a huge step. I continued to send out my sonnets for publication consideration, but I decided to send them to some of the larger, and most popular literary journals for poetry. Not because I think my sonnets belong at these places (I think all poems belong everywhere), but to step away from my own insecurities and allow my work to be seen by more people. The only way to “beat” imposter syndrome is to take the big steps anyway.

Is it likely my work will be published in these larger journals? I don’t know. I’ve not submitted to them since I first started sending out my work, and back then (2015) I was sending out fiction and nonfiction. My writing has changed dramatically since then, especially considering that I’ve completed one and almost two master’s programs. But this isn’t even about whether or not my work will get accepted. It’s about me — how I view my own work and whether or not I am willing to advocate for it.

So, I’m sending my sonnets to the top literary journals for poetry. I’m going to take the rejections as they come. I’m going to receive the feedback, whenever it is offered. And I’m going to take a more active approach to no longer stifling myself. And yeah, part of me wants to be able to say that I’ve been published in these places. It looks good in a cover letter. It holds weight when sending out manuscripts. It opens up opportunities for the big literary prizes. This is a kind of alternative means of networking.

But I think more than anything, it’s a push, a challenge for me as a poet.

I’ve already decided I won’t be traditionally publishing my fiction unless it takes off and a publisher wants to offer me money for my series, in which case, yes, I’ll take the offer, please and thank you. But I don’t want the querying process. It’s not important enough to me to get me through the year (or years!) of querying, the doubt, the depression.

My poetry, however, is something else altogether. It’s separate from my fiction. Published under a different name. Covers different subjects and themes. And for some reason, my brain keeps telling me to push farther with it. So I listen.

And we will see where the journey takes us.