Thursday, May 19, 2005

NICE REJECTIONS

Poets crowing about their latest triumph -- ah, we hear it quite a bit in blogland, & who can blame 'em, I do it too -- but let me crow about this rejection e-mail I got a few weeks (well, quite a few weeks) back:

Dear Poet,

Thank you so much for submitting poems to the Spring, 2005 Issue of Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine.

Regrettably the editors either did not choose your poems or they were edited out because of space issues. Please do not be discouraged as the number of poems submitted this quarter was over 1500 from many points of Canada and there are different editors for next issue. Feel free to resubmit the same poems again or send new ones for the Summer Issue. The deadline for submissions is May 1st.

Well, I resubmitted the same pomes.

Frankly I find the Quills name and image far more cloying than the contents of this independent and unpretentious little journal, which takes email submissions excusively. (Maybe it should be called Electronic Quill, E-Quill for short.) If you click on that link, you'll see also that not only does it accept poems from "young and old, published or unpublished", it accepts submissions from poets who have died in the current year (or rather, from publishers of said poets), with DEAD POETS SUBMISSION in the subject line.

So if you've just died and happen to be reading this, take note.

For those who have not yet croaked, there's a yearly lust issue with pretty steamy cover pic under that trite insignia. Talk about dual personality. Or multiple. Hmmm.

Again, you have to be Canadian to submit to this one. None of you nasty Americans allowed.

We'll see if I win the Quills lottery this time. If not, well, I can keep on submitting ... even after I pass on into the next realm. Although I can only do so for a year after giving up my last breath.

Talk about a deadline!

12 comments:

A. J. Patrick Liszkiewicz said...

I've always wondered this:

Why do Canadian literary magazines only accept Canadian submissions?

This seems to be an across-the-board thing, and it bothers me -- not in any philosophic manner, but because I'm from Buffalo.

Buffalo is practically a Canadian province, dammit. We love Canada, we Buffalonians.

Again: sigh.

Brian Campbell said...

Actually I just bought some bison burgers at the local Provigo (the big supermarket here), so if we love to eat you, we should publish you.

(I've never tried bison burgers...will tell you if I love them...)

The mag should at least say, "We accept poetry from Canada -- and Buffalo." I think that would be an interesting marketing strategy.

Joking aside, though, a number of Canadian literary mags do accept poetry from Americans.

I think any exclusivity you have encountered may stem from the fact that we are so swamped with Americana up here, that we have a tendency, like muskox faced by a stiff wind, to form a tight circle with our horns out...

A. J. Patrick Liszkiewicz said...

Canadians don't have horns. We/They are cute and friendly folk....

Let me know about the burgers. I've always wanted to eat a bison.

Brian Campbell said...

AJPL: muskox are cute, despite their horns. Am so am I. (Speak of the devil himself.) One of these days I'll learn to post my picture.
Charles: as a resident of the bad-ass province, I sometimes wonder if we deserve the rest of Canada. ;)

BTW, you both: I've figured out what FYI means as well as BTW, but what is this lol. I see all the time? Love it or leave it? And these little things like :) and :-) and ;)I see quite often: (-:)
Are these happy faces on the side? Were you giving me a wink back there? Or did your baby finger suffer apoplexy?

A. J. Patrick Liszkiewicz said...

LOL!

And, on the off-chance that you're not kidding:

1.) 'LOL' = 'Laugh(ing) Out Loud'

2.) Those little apoplectic things are, in fact, various forms of smiley-faces. They're called 'emoticons'.

;)

Brian Campbell said...

Oh brother. No I really wasn't. LOL. LOL. ;) :-) :>) :? :/) ;~) !!!
(Just practicing.)

A. J. Patrick Liszkiewicz said...

http://www.computeruser.com/resources/
dictionary/emoticons.html

Enjoy!

A. D. said...

'The mag should at least say, "We accept poetry from Canada -- and Buffalo." I think that would be an interesting marketing strategy.'

I agree. Though I'm feeling less Canadian these days without Hockey Night in Canada and with the threat looming that I may soon need a passport to get over the border. A passport to go to Fort Erie or the Falls?!?

A. J. Patrick Liszkiewicz said...

Oh, how I long for the days of uber-odd tweed jackets on Hockey Night in Canada, and Rick Astley clone, Brian Blessing, on (el defuncto) Empire Sports Network.

And if I need a passport to drive into my sister-country, well, I'm going to... get a passport. I'm a wimp.

Brian Campbell said...

At least we haven't flown any of your citizens overseas to be tortured in a Syrian prison.

But oops, this is getting more serious than I want.... (Remember what I said about horns?)

;) :-) ;) :~)!!!

Brian Campbell said...

Woops, I just checked the link to the dictionary of emoticons you gave me AJPL. I didn't realize that they had evolved into a whole language akin to morse code. A.D., don't read too much into those smiley faces. To me they mean smile smile on cheers!!! (Now I'll have to decipher them and and determine which unwitting insults, if any, I'll have to take back...)

Brian Campbell said...

Just found out... that Concordia University is using Quills in its syllabus for the creative writing department. I wonder how...