After Spending Time Revising A Poem Today, I Receive A Rejection:

I just received one of those "form letter" rejections from a small, independent press. I was a semi-finalist along with twenty or so other poets. Again. I have been sending this poetry manuscript out for over a year now. It has some poems in it there were published in journals so I am not a novice to all of this. I have been writing and publishing for years. There are two chapbooks of my poetry out there in the world (one is out of print so I guess it is now considered "rare").

And I studied. I was in an M.A. writing program at University of New Mexico (in fact Joy Harjo was my thesis director). I have spent a good amount of time with other writers, working on my craft. I thought this time I had a really good shot of getting my manuscript accepted for publication. But it did not happen. One of the editors did send an encouraging handwritten note, and that was it.

So what am I doing wrong? Am I doing anything wrong? Is it time to self-publish?

A little voice reminds me, "Self-publishing will not help you advance with your academic career. It has no value at all in academia." Oh yes, there certainly would be some investigation into that checking to see if my publication is legitimate.

Today I don't feel legitimate. I feel again like that girl sitting in the back of the classroom being told my lines are too long and the poem just goes on and on.