I’ve always been very interested in the idea of writing poetry as an act of prayer or as a spiritual praxis. What is your favorite book, article, quote, or other resource touching on this? Here’s one of my many favorites…
Writing
Rejection Slips
I found a stash of rejections slips from my first attempt at being a poet in the mid-80s to early 90s. I’d like to share the ones from @NimrodJournal, @BPJTweets, and The Threepenny Review instead of actually writing tonight.
I kind of miss those days. The wait times were longer and simultaneous submissions weren’t the norm, but responses only arrived once a day. There was also a visceral sense of accomplishment available when you looked at your pile of rejection slips that just can’t be duplicated with email and Submittable.
I don’t think I ever tried Nimrod again.
And not talk about it
“Anyway, I have it borne in on me that my business is to write and not talk about it.”
~ Flannery O’Connor
Presses vs. Journals
Is it just me, or is waiting to hear from presses about a chapbook submission completely different than waiting to hear from journals about a submission of a packet of individual poems?
Saints Layered Like Leaves
My poem from the September Ghost City Review was originally called “Presence.” Fortunately, a very perceptive workshop friend pointed out I was overlooking a better title that was right in front of me.
In its defense, this is where “Presence” (the title not the poem) came from:
“Catholicism is a culture of sacred presence. Relics of saints (pieces of their bodies or objects touched to their bodies); water, soil, or other matter associated with sites of miraculous events; statues, images and crucifixes are all media of presence.”
~Robert Orsi
“setting up a chain reaction”
C.D. Wright from Cooling Time
