[Pedro Poitevin]

There's something lovely about the standard rejection letter by Rattle that keeps me trying. I know that when Light rejects me, the poems have been read anonymously, and this tells me that (by some kind of objective measure) the poems aren't working quite as well as I wish. This is informative and useful in a way that getting other kind of rejections isn't. There's something awesome about getting a rejection from a magazine you truly love (like the Hudson Review) because you know you've overcome your petty fear of rejection and lovingly sent your best poems where you want them to go.

But there are places that have managed to irk me with particularly curt rejections. (I've written off submitting to those places.) Does this happen to you, too? Don't you think even mass rejection emails could be handled in an either delicate or a mildly informative fashion? (How hard would it be to have two tiers of rejections: one with "keep submitting to us, please," and one without?)

[Julie Steiner]

I hated those old rejection slips from Light, which simply said "Not quite." Each one was an arrow to the aorta.

And the fact that they hit me so hard seemed to add insult to injury. Not only was I not funny enough to get into Light, I didn't even have enough of a sense of humor to chuckle nonchalantly at the tersely humorous rejection slips.

[Shaun J. Russell]

Before I even read the thread, the title immediately put in mind Rattle's rejections -- sometimes they had a personal explanation, and sometimes they were "forms," but they were always pleasant and polite forms that encouraged me to resubmit.

The editors at one British publication (it might have been The London Review?) clearly liked the poem I sent them -- a poem about Oliver Cromwell -- but were very apologetic because it wasn't something they felt they could publish. That was a good rejection, because I knew the poem was well-regarded...it was just too anachronistic to warrant print at that pub.

I haven't sent my work out for a few years, but I think the most irksome rejection I ever received was a rather blase (yet detailed) personal rejection from a certain magazine that was, a few days later, revoked and changed into an acceptance. The editor actually said something like "I've changed my mind and I'm going to take this after all." I came very close to turning down the acceptance, but I liked the poem too much to deny it the venue.

I had a few rejection letters that snarked at the fact that the poems were in form. Most rejections, however, fall into the "unobtrusively annoying" category: not memorable beyond the basic fact of rejection.

[Ed Shacklee]

I generally find curt, dismissive rejections to be either funny, astute, or both.

I sometimes get the impression a submission never had a chance to begin with, and it is kind of sad to have your time wasted like that. However, that's usually because of some article I happened to read, such as this one: I've never felt that way because of a rejection note. A form letter simply means the editor is busy, as far as I'm concerned. Good for them.

On the other hand, I am one who very much enjoys and often learns something from a thoughtful rejection letter, whether it's encouraging or critical, such as those I've gotten from The Dark Horse, Light, Lighten Up Online, the Loch Raven Review, and numerous other venues. Keep them coming, guys.

Best,

Ed

[Charlie Southerland]

i recently got a rejection written in child's Crayola crayon. No, it wasn't a children's poem either.

[Michael Cantor]

That was from me, Charlie. I guess I forgot to sign it.

Beyond that, I can't get all that fired up about rejection notes as long as they don't go as far as threatening a court order if I ever submit again. Among the complaints I have with editors, rejection notes is way down the list. I'm much more interested in getting a prompt reply, for example, and if putting up with a routine rejection note means that it takes a month less to sit on my poem, I'll buy that. Keep in mind that the magazines to which we submit receive many hundreds of submissions - probably thousands a year for some - and asking for a special little note rather than a simple (even if curt) rejection means that somebody has to make that time - over and over again. (I also assume that if the poem was very close to being accepted, there might be a more personal contact - that's part of what publishers do.) But I'm not going to lose sleep over it. There are many more decent magazines out there than I have poems.

[James Brancheau]

Yes, prompt is a good rejection. There are places I will never submit to again because after a year I deserve at least a coffee mug.

[Michael Juster]

What's worse for me is the increasing number of places that don't respond within a year or don't respond at all.

For all the money we are now paying to Submittable, you'd think the tracking system would make it better rather than worse.

[Susan McLean]

I agree. My pet peeve is the journals that take over a year to respond or never respond. Any journal that takes more than half a year to make a decision is a journal I don't care to try again. I don't take the form rejections to heart, but if I keep getting them from the same journal, I usually decide that I am barking up the wrong tree, and I try elsewhere. There may be a limited number of journals that take form poem seriously, but the number is growing. I would rather deal with considerate editors of small journals than with jerks who think that their journal is so important that the submitters should be willing to put up with any kind of treatment.

Susan

[Roger Slater]

Speaking of Light Quarterly, it's the only journal I know of that sometimes sent form acceptance slips. I recall once receiving a xeroxed form that had a blank line for them to write in the name of the poems they were taking.