Today I wrote a poem about my visit home. I got out my new "Poet's Market", and read on-line potential places to submit. I chose two, and then gathered up a set of poems to send to each. I got the submissions complete, mailed one, and have the other waiting to be addressed on my computer table. In the past, I usually only have one or two submissions out at a time. This leads to a kind of inertia, because one waits for answers before submitting again. This time I am trying to send out numerous things, as I did the first time I seriously submitted, just out of college. Then I got pleasing stacks of form rejections, a small group of insightful comments amid rejections, one rude "ink crossed through my cover letter" rejection from a New England academic journal, and a treasured few acceptances. I want to return to submitting a large volume of poetry, so that I may make an attractive scrapbook of the rejection slips.
I took our younger lhasa for a walk around the neighborhood. The trees were filled with rioting grackles. Sir Paul McCartney exposed no flesh during the Super Bowl halftime show. Fox Sports had no greater clue than to play "Sunday, Bloody Sunday" while showing football players delivering tackles.
These next few weeks will be difficult. But I'm going to live them anyway.
