Poetry publishing advice from a maestro

Over 30 poems accepted for publication, written in 10 minutes

It seems like at least once a week, Louis Faber tells me he’s had another poem accepted for publication. His total stands at over 500, and at least 30 of them were written in 10 minutes in our Prompt of the Week sessions, and submitted unchanged.

Click here to read his latest, published last week in the first issue of the beautifully designed Persephone.

I’ve put out Lou’s guest post before; here it is again, with extra advice added!

So you finally have that piece of writing you want to share with the world. What to do? As a poet who has been submitting work for too many years, I’ve learned many of the ins and outs of seeking publication. And I have learned the rules a writer dare not break and the “back office” aspects of submission that will take up considerable time.

1.     Where to submit? There are a very large number of journals, ezines and other homes for writing. Some are well known (Paris Review) and some were born yesterday. How do you find them? Gone are the old Writer’s Market books. But here now are newsletters and websites offering information on who is looking for work at the present moment (they do have submission windows) and what they are looking for. The two I use are Duotrope.com and Chillsubs.com.

2.     Once you identify places to submit, read the journal to insure that your work fits their ethos. Some are highly focused, or open only to writers of color or gender or age. Look carefully at their submission guidelines and follow them literally. If there is a line or word limit, do not exceed it or you work will end up in the digital or literal wastebasket. If they want up to five poems, do not send six. If they want a cover letter, check the masthead and send it to the editor for the genre in which you are submitting. Be personable, let them know you as a person, not merely a manuscript.

3.     While many journals accept simultaneous submissions, some do not and if you choose to submit to one that does not, don’t submit the work elsewhere until you receive a response. And keep track of your submissions. Unless the journal allows, do not submit previously published work. Work you have published on a blog will generally be considered previously published (but work you share on the Imaginative Storm Circle will not). If you are lucky enough to have your work accepted by Journal A you MUST notify all of the other places you submitted that you are withdrawing that work from consideration. Not doing so and having to decline a second acceptance comes with a literary scarlet letter you do not want to wear. Excel spreadsheets can be fashioned for this purpose, but Duotrope and Chillsubs also have submission trackers that you can use quite easily.

4.     Be prepared for rejection. Lots of rejection. Much of it will come in a form letter or email, but do not take it personally. And be prepared to heed the advice of John Berryman (as quoted by W.S. Merwin in his poem “Berryman”):  “as for publishing he advised me / to paper my wall with rejection slips.”  If I am on a roll, I will be lucky to place work with 10 percent of the submissions I make—and that is one poem, not the entire submission. This takes time, is boring, frustrating, and essential.

5.     Don’t give up. Start with small journals, start with those with higher acceptance rates, and spend the time required. I have spent countless hours and days in the last 30 years on the submission process. And one you get a piece accepted and published use that in a way you might not have considered. Read the work of the others in that publication (you should be doing that anyway). Note any names that are even remotely familiar or whose work you particularly like. If you have published in more than one place, do any names appear with you in both or several places?  Google them and see where else they have been published. It's a rough roadmap of places to submit. For me years ago it was a poet named Lyn Lifshin and there have been others since. In a strange way you are building a disconnected community where your words and theirs keep running into each other. In other words let other writers do some of the digging for you.

What do I have to show for it? 509 poems published in journals large and small, known and unknown, here and around the world, and a book and about 5,000+ rejections along that route.

I’ll add: the best lesson I ever learned was to take no for an answer. When you don’t mind a no, you can keep asking, and the yeses will come.