Poetry Foundation
Poetry Magazine
December 2008
Poems by Roddy Lumsden, Todd Boss, Joan Houlihan, Ange Mlinko, Fred D'Aguiar, R.S. Gwynn, Glenn Morazzini, Lilly Poetry Fellows: Nicky Beer, Michael Rutherglen, Roger Reeves; and more More
Harriet

Linh Dinh
Bill Knott's rejection slips
07.29.08 | Comments (1)



Comments


Dear Mr. or Ms. [Knott],

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to read your selected rejections. After much consideration, we regret to inform you that we really don't know what to make of them.

Is this gathering, in its childlike collage-array, to be taken as a primal cry from the soul, an avowal of failure and shame, a desperate lament from the Wilderness of Minor Rank?

Or is it, rather, an all-thumbs attempt at Clever Irony, a barely veiled self-congratulatory display, slyly proffered as a supercilious strutting of one's superiority over mere editors of Poetry, such as we, who seem to increasingly prefer (as we believe you believe) the non-syllogistic indecencies of post-avant lunacies to the hard-edged rationalities of post-Parra (and to use a word you will favor) litotes?

Please pardon our baroque modification. And forgive us that our response cannot be more personal, even handwritten. But we are sure you can understand we have 2500 Poet-bloggers a fortnight who, just like you, submit to us their rearranged rejecta.

In any case, though not that it's any kind of consolation, perhaps you can add this one to your undoubtedly bourgeoning collection. It is a form rejection, true, but we have put some time, as a staff, into making it original.

Permit us, then, to sign off with that universal, but sincere icon of Solidarity and Compassion, and which is the very Name of our magazine:

:~)

Posted by: Kent Johnson on July 30, 2008 3:05 PM

Post a comment

(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Your name and a valid e-mail address are required. Thanks for waiting.)



CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Wanda Coleman
Olena Kalytiak Davis
Forrest Gander
Lavinia Greenlaw
Javier Huerta
Travis Nichols

STAFF WRITERS
Michael Marcinkowski
Fred Sasaki
Don Share
Elizabeth Stigler
Nick Twemlow
Emily Warn

PREVIOUS WRITERS
Christian Bök
Stephen Burt
Kwame Dawes
Linh Dinh
Daisy Fried
Alan Gilbert
Kenneth Goldsmith
Rigoberto González
Major Jackson
Ada Limón
Jeffrey McDaniel
Ange Mlinko
Mark Nowak
Lucia Perillo
D.A. Powell
Reginald Shepherd
Patricia Smith
A.E. Stallings
Rachel Zucker

RECENT COMMENTS
Political Poetry: An Epistolary Conversation (5)
Hayden Carruth (1921-2008) (3)
Empire in Funkville (7)
¡Maldición! (3)
Read the foreign and the dead (3)

RECENT POSTS
Hayden Carruth (1921-2008) (Emily Warn)
Read the foreign and the dead (Lavinia Greenlaw)
O LITERATI, GET UP! (Olena Kalytiak Davis)
POETRY + MUSIC = INSPIRATION? (Wanda Coleman)
Into the Mouths of Volcanoes (Forrest Gander)

CATEGORY ARCHIVE
Poetry magazine
AWP
Arts
Awards
Biography
Books
Criticism
Distribution
Education
Film
International
Language
Music
News
Obituaries
Outrageous
Photographs
Poems
Poetry Out Loud
Poetry and the Internet
Politics
Readings
TV
Translation
poetryfoundation.org

AUTHOR ARCHIVES
Christian Bök
Stephen Burt
Wanda Coleman
Olena Kalytiak Davis
Kwame Dawes
Linh Dinh
Daisy Fried
Forrest Gander
Alan Gilbert
Kenneth Goldsmith
Rigoberto González
Lavinia Greenlaw
Javier Huerta
Major Jackson
Ada Limón
Jeffrey McDaniel
Ange Mlinko
Travis Nichols
Mark Nowak
Ed Park
Lucia Perillo
D.A. Powell
Fred Sasaki
Don Share
Reginald Shepherd
Patricia Smith
A.E. Stallings
Elizabeth Stigler
Nick Twemlow
Emily Warn
Rachel Zucker

Subscribe to the RSS feed.
What is RSS?

Poetry Tool






OR SEARCH
Events
Poetry Presents
"What use had I for hands":
A Theatrical Interpretation of Five Poems by Dana Levin



Links Hall
3435 N. Sheffield
Friday-Sunday, December 12-14
Free admission

More

Email Sign Up
Sign up for updates from the Poetry Foundation. Click here to learn more, or enter your email address to sign up!