I'm not sure one can measure easier vs. harder because there are so many factors involved. A good poem will find a home and so will, in some cases, bad ones.
It is always a longer wait time when many are involved in the review, whether by students learning to analyze or a collaborative editorial board. You can use that wait time to write new poems, Ed.
I got two copies of Coe Review today which had the "grandmother feeding the deer in the backyard" poem which I had up on NonMet after Michael Robbins' interview complaint about poems about "grandmothers feeding deer in the backyard". I wrote it mainly to show that it isn't the subject matter that decides if a poem is good or not. It is (may I say in an immodest and self-aggrandizing way) as good as the poems MR currently has in the most recent issue of Poetry, said poems including many memorable lines such as:
(...)
I have a cow behind the Dollar Bin.
You shouldn't drink diarrhea
unless you bring enough for everybody.
Today I trust the English Department editors at Coe Review more than the staff at Poetry.
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