[Terese Coe]

FWIW, I never workshopped the "Epitaph for Francois Rabelais" translation published by Poetry. No one opened any back, side, or garage doors for me, nor did lobbyists, bribes or favors enhance what was on offer.

I don't suck up to them and they don't suck up to me. I haven't given them my secondborn child, and if they had taken him (even at three years old) they would have been mincemeat in about a half-hour (as for the firstborn, their minds would have been mincemeat). My kids have minds of their own, to put it mildly. And that's a good thing.

[Roger Slater]

No one ever accused you of anything, Terese. It's encouraging to see that one can be noticed in the blind pool of slush, without so much as a name to drop.

I didn't mean to complain, at least not excessively. Those, if any, who have special access have earned it by their reputations. I would not expect that Richard Wilbur, for example, should have to have his submissions sit in a pile of 20,000 wannabes waiting for some screener to pass it along to Wiman. Nor would I expect my own mailed inquiry to Wiman regarding prior publication to be answered in a week's time with a personal note. Clearly it is okay for Wiman to have certain people he is more eager to hear from than myself. I just wish the real poets would go on strike so I could shockingly cross the picket line and fill in until the strike was over.

[Terese Coe]

"No one ever accused you of anything, Terese."

I know, Bob. I thought I'd preempt any possible accusations, show transparency, and brag about my kids while I was at it.

(Hey, how often in eight years have I taken the opportunity to brag about my kids here? I think never...unless memory fails.)

[Tim Murphy]

Hey folks, we all start out sending over the transom. The first two poems Alan Sullivan sent out were to Poetry and The Spectator. They were accepted. I only started publishing twelve years ago, but I've won the rodeo about three hundred times. First requirement, put your best foot forward. I think Poetry's two great victories in the last twenty years are their discoveries of Kay Ryan and Wendy Videlock. Go to their masthead and read Harriet Monroe's Mission Statement. 106 years later, they are still at it.

[wendy v]

Jim, old friend,

Namaste,

no hard feelings...

My defensiveness is a result of some cumulative stuffs, as I said,
as I'm sure yours are. I figured I'd just put it all out there, vent
my own annoyances, display my application for sainthood, etc.

I do understand publishing frustrations and the accompanying
suppositions. I suffer them, too, but I try to remind myself that I
ought at least make an effort to be half as objective
as I might wish all those editors out there to be.

There's a gawdawful whole lotta poems out there in the world.

Paz --

[Jim Hayes]

Thank you Wendy, your words mean much.

They always do.

Jim