The poems I posted about yesterday started doing the rounds in December, 2017. I sent them to a few different places right away. Then I turned my attention to sending out other poems and doing other things.
Publishers responded over the course of the next several months. Poems that were part of this series but which had gone out in other batches began to place. Few responses to this particular batch of five. In fact, four of the publishers to which I sent this batch in December, 2017 had not responded as of yesterday when I wrote to withdraw the poems from consideration. Publishers stop publishing, submissions get overlooked.
Middle of 2018 I made a new push to get this batch before editors, every couple months sending it to another place. Rejections came in. I like the poems. I like them as much as others in the series that were taken up quickly. So I kept them going out.
Finally, an acceptance! An ezine took one. Yay! Dutifully, I wrote fifteen places I’d sent the poems to over the course of 14 months, fifteen places that had not yet responded, in order to tell them one of the poems had been spoken for, and asking them to continue to consider the other four. Shortly thereafter I got a rejection, prompted, perhaps, by the notification. Then I got an email from Reuben Woolley of The Curly Mind, an email including a link to a post on the ezine that featured the four poems.
Mr Woolley had not just accepted the poems, he had right away posted them. I like it when that happens!
So, just a week after I’d written to notify editors that one poem was no longer available, I wrote to them again to tell them that none were.
Fourteen months from first submission until I could close the book on the batch. Nothing unusual in this. No records set or disturbing stories. It felt a little weird to have this batch circle and circle while other poems in the series settled. Is there anything to learn? I think it just confirms what I already know. The randomness.
Sometimes the poem will find the editor who loves it on its first foray. Other times it will take many a trek past editors near and far. And, yes, there are still some poems I started sending out in 2017 that haven’t yet found anyone (besides me) who loves them.
