words for thinkers, parents, activists, dreamers
Many thanks to Sonia Greenfield for including me in such a worthy, necessary project. #resist
Feel free to visit the Rise Up Review website or Facebook page to read ‘Merica and others, then consider Liking their page and sharing the work that moves you. As Sonia says, “you never know who might need a poem.”
Accountability check-in! But first, what is #100rejections anyway?
I have decided to set the literary goal of accumulating 100 rejections this calendar year to facilitate sustained efforts toward publication. Submitting multiple poems to one market and having them all rejected counts as one rejection. Having any number of poems in the packet accepted means that submission counts as an acceptance. I’m aiming for 120 submissions by September 30 to accomplish this.
June, 2017 — 8 Rejections, 4 Acceptances, 5 New Submissions (oopsy)
Year to Date, 56 / 10 / 69
*The journals marked with an asterisk (*) satisfy my secondary literary goal of submitting to as many top-tier journals as possible. See my January Totals post for details.
**This one is still debatable to me – a poem I had withdrawn from this packet was originally accepted by this market, and when I called their attention to the withdrawal email I’d sent, they kindly inquired about the availability of a second poem in the packet instead. The catch is I have not heard back yet confirming they are definitely taking it. We’ll see what happens!
Noteworthy to me, I’m more than half way to my goal of 100 rejections at the 6 month mark, and June ended up being my densest acceptance month to date. Hooray for the midway successes!
This was a challenging and time-consuming month in terms of Life Activities. Summer started so childcare issues came to the fore, and with my daughter’s father away on a job contract, all childcare planning fell to me, as did the childcare rearranging as plans slipped through my fingers with alarming and exasperating regularity. Between missing her daddy and graduating from her favorite school, my little had a lot of needs and processing to work through, so that is what we did. I definitely fell off the submission wagon as a result, but that’s how it goes sometimes, and I regret nothing. In related news, my daughter is being well cared for, and I am getting an A in Literary Theory, which, can I just say, is a mind-blowing class, and completely relevant to certain cultural and social ills we are experiencing today. Just sayin’. Support the arts. They are trying to support you.
❤
Tune in next month for July tallies!
samara powers poetry