These are poems rejected by journals, in chronological order by response date from earliest to most recent—the diametrical opposite of my series Pub Crawl, which features poems published in journals in the same kind of chronological order. As with my other series, there are personal notes and craft notes. Roll your eyes as much as you like—that’s what Rejected! is all about!
Verses for Submission
Arms pinned above my head
Powerless over what follows
I relax my muscles
Let go the need to shape
My legs forced aside
Events follow an order
Not labored or exquisite
But natural
Microtonal polyrhythmic bluesy
Nothing I could have invented
So beautiful it makes me sob
But you'd punish me if I called you a poet
Rejection History
APR March 13, 1995
Colorado Review April 17, 1995
Ō.blēk April 26, 1995 (Journal defunct at time of submission)
Gettysburg Review November 26, 1997
Iowa Review January 24, 1998
Evergreen Chronicles October 28, 1999
Caffeine Destiny November 18, 2005
Can We Have Our Ball Back June 29, 2008 (Publication suspended at time of submission)
The Good Men Project September 20, 2014
Assaracus October 10, 2014
Linebreak November 28, 2015 (Assumed rejected; no record of response)
Current publication status: Included in my book Drug And Disease Free.
Wow. I tried hard with this baby. It’s not the poem with the most rejections, but it’s definitely in the top five or ten. What that reflects more than anything else is not how much editors didn’t like it, but how committed I was to it, and how persistently I continued submitting it to journals—over ten years, in fact—until I finally decided simply to include it in a book that I essentially self-published.
I’ve gotten bored and tired of writing extensive close readings of these poems in this series, and I don’t think my subscribers for the most part enjoyed those extensive disquisitions. I think you mostly want to enjoy reading poems. And that’s fine.
Because I never pass up an opportunity to say his name, I will note that when I wrote this poems I was thinking of the late, great Anthony Ibrahin Salinas (1955–1994), aka Tony, aka Tony Tone (because he was a musician). As I never tire of acknowledging, Tony was the love of my life. Tony was an alcoholic. Tony tried and failed repeatedly to get sober. Tony died of his alcoholism. And Tony was the sweetest angel you could ever hope to meet. Big, hairy, horny, self-hating, foul-mouthed, Stoli-swilling, blackout-drunk, bleeding all over the place Tony.
The poem is a poem, so it is not literally about any particular real-life sexual incident. And neither Tony nor any other man, thank God, ever forced my legs apart. And Tony never did, and never would have, punished me for anything. But it makes for a neat poem, don’t you think?
If you liked this post, please consider clicking the ❤️ below. I welcome your comments, too, on the poem itself, or any aspect of this post, or anything you would like to share about the writing or reading of poetry.
Wow, Michael! This is another amazing poem. What puzzles me is how in the world you even had to go beyond ONE submission before it got accepted. The analogy of the ecstasy of writing, like the sexual act, is visceral as well as masterful!