After the Flood...

Olive Branch--

I don't even know how long it's been since I've written, but if you were worried about me, my home, my family, the streets of this small town, the floods...we are all fine and dry. I was truly impressed how quickly the water receded once the rain stopped. The ark project has been temporarily halted.


Dove--

What else I have I been up to? Ah, yes...two other poets and myself had a little "submission party" since we last spoke.

Basically, we each arrived with copies of our poems, SASEs, envelopes, postage, laptop, cover letters, and submission guidelines for six of our favorite journals or six places we'd like to be published in.

We sat on my friend's bamboo floor and chose poems. We tried not to get too over-involved in the choosing. This is something I do when on my own. I try to choose the poems I feel best represent the journal or what I think the editor will like. I might as well use a Magic 8-ball because one never really knows what another likes when it comes to poetry. Sometimes I guess right, but sometimes not. So, I tried to make it "fun."

Did I just use the term "fun" while referring to submitting my work? I did. Submitting is not fun to me. It brings out every insecurity I have as well as makes me become the crazy last-minute editor (i.e. "Oh, I don't want that comma in line 16, I'll have to revise this before I can send it out...weeks pass...) Poems that seemed finished, no longer have that sparkle and are returned back into the pile.

Submitting with friends makes it much easier and enjoyable, and while I still left with 8-11 poems I didn't submit because in the end I didn't feel they were strong enough, I still did 4 submissions, then came home and did two more online submissions. So six in a day, not bad. The other poet did seven submissions, and the owner of the bamboo floor poet did two. (15 in all for the math majors.)

It's quite lovely to submit while snacking on coffee cake, fresh cinnamon rolls, peppermint tea, and amidst poet friends. While we talked about poetry, we also talked about life and once and a while a white cat rolled across our poems. The time went quickly. We arrived at 9:30 a.m. and left at 1-ish. (I almost left all my submissions under a table, but they were found just before I left!)

I simultaneously submitted two poems where the guidelines said it was okay (I rarely do that), but all the rest are not sim-subs. Honestly, I don't like to do sim-subs because I worry about my record-keeping and having to track that. Also, I don't like having to contact editors to pull poems if they're accepted some place else. The other poet does all her poems sim-subs though and it works very well for her. (And she submitted the most and the quickest too.)

There is a part of me that wishes I could be much more casual that way, but I'm not. I'm not really a multi-tasker when it comes to submitting. My positive outlook would be that I'm the tortoise, slow and steady, but my negative outlook would be that I'm the nervous nelly whose afraid she's going to be mess something up with having submissions too many places. I guess we each have to find which way is best for us. Maybe one day, I will try to sim-sub more, but for now, I'm doing okay as is, one poem at time.


Ark--

So, since the olive branch is my life staying dry and the dove is submitting my work, the ark must be my writing.

I'm in an online group with 8 other poets and we're trying to write a poem a day for 16 days in December.

So far my favorite title has been: Portrait of Younger Self with Witches’ Butter (and this may be my favorite poem so far). My worst title is "After". (Good one.)

So, my writing life is sailing along. Each day, a new poem. On the first day of Christmas my muse gave to me...

Submissions

Last night I stayed up a little later than planned (with Top Design playing in the family room so I could peek in at it occasionally-- Todd Oldham is my favorite person) to do submissions. When I finished I had two--one to Poetry and one to Smartish Pace. I haven't submitted to Poetry in years and Smartish Pace is one of my favorite journals.

The whole process took me longer than it should have. I started second-guessing my poems. What would they like? What would they like? I was my own Burger King commercial trying for these journals to have it "their way," yet what was "their way?" What were the poems they would like? It's a strange psychic guessing game with no real way of finding the answer (except submitting).

This is where I can over-think when submitting to journals.

Once I put my poem to the Seattle Bus Poem people in the mailbox, walked home only to realize ten minutes later that I had (in my mind) *sent the wrong poem!* I raced back to the mailbox to grab my poem, but it was gone. The mailman had taken it away. I was so upset. Of course you know where this is going--that was the poem that was accepted by the poetry on the bus project. The poem I was sure was terrible and no longer my first choice was the one they chose.

As a writer, it's so hard to see our best work when we're in the middle of it. A friend of mine gave me great advice, she said, "When you submit, send 3 poems you think they'll love and one you think they'll hate." It's usually that last poem that is accepted.

But back to my "I did two submissions last night," because the tale has an unexpected and expected ending. On my way to put my finished submissions in this cute vintage ceramic mailbox next to our front door, I remember thinking, "I'm trying to carry too much" (as I grabbed my half-filled coffee cup) and then just as I imagined dropping my coffee cup it happened, coffee mug, submissions, a thank you note to a friend go flying across the hardwood floors. And there in a mess of yesterday's coffee--my poetry submissions, wet, stained, and definitely not something I'd be able to send in. I know I'm from a coffeetown, but stinky coffee-smelling poems do not need to be proof of it.

It was 12:22 p.m. I know because I looked at the clock, a sort of sleepytime punishment where acknowledging that it's after midnight made me feel even more tired. So, I went back into my office to see what could be salvaged. I almost went to bed instead of fixed these, but it's sort of like cleaning my house at night, no matter how late I stay up, it's always such a reward to wake up to something that doesn't need to be done. So redid my submissions--which wasn't too hard because there was no over-thinking, there was no thinking at all. I put them in clean envelopes, tried to save the stamps (I lost one butterfly stamp) and re-addressed them. I was in bed fifteen minutes later.

So, that was my night of submitting. Two submissions, an evening of Top Design, and cleaning up a half of cup of coffee while the rest of the house slept. A strange poetic life, but I can't complain.