Where poems go to die
To hear me read this, click HERE.
Writing for publication is not for the faint of heart. Come to think of it, neither is lifelong caregiving, aging, or fill-in-the-blanks-with-what-occupies-your-days. But my heart is not faint, and neither is yours. I didn’t come here for a general life-is-hard rant. My good fortune and blessings are abundant.
Every writer I know—whether through personal relationship or solely through their books and interviews—tells me they are intimately acquainted with rejection. Even the most loved and successful authors have received many more nos than yesses. And for minor leaguers like me…well, of the perhaps 800 pieces I’ve submitted over the last decade or so, I’ve about 70 acceptances to show for it.
My computer desktop is a maze of folders. A few are related to my forthcoming book* or to specific ideas for future collections. Others have names like Submit Here, Submitted Here, Most Recent Working On, and Working On. Those last two sit companionably side by side, but they don’t enjoy the same treatment. Most Recent Working On is the more exclusive club. It holds poems and essays I have written within the past few months that I’ve been actively editing or plan to edit soon. Most of them will be honed to my relative satisfaction and sent out into the ether in hopes of finding homes in Literary Magazines. The Working On folder corrals an overfull, haphazard mixture of starts and half-finished pieces as well as a few hundred poems that I deemed temporarily complete but lacking. I really ought to rename Working On, as some of this writing is more than 15 years old. I suspect more than half of those pieces will never make it out of that folder.
Almost a year ago, I came across a literary magazine called Trash to Treasure Lit. This is their mission statement from the website:
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“trash to treasure lit was created to foster a community of writers who may not believe in their abilities but deserve to. for writers to learn from their words and others, and to open the conversation around why we reject our work before it’s given a chance. we encourage writers to have faith in their words and the stories they have to tell while uplifting their fellow writer
the publishing industry can be brutal, and it can so effortlessly destroy your will to continue writing. the aim of this publication is to encourage writers to keep pushing through those boundaries and roadblocks, to learn that we can be our biggest critics and that we too often discard our work so that others don’t get the chance to. trash to treasure lit is a safe space for all writers – published or not
every writer has a piece of ‘trash’ that we can treasure”
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That made me smile, as did the further request that authors explain why they’d judged their piece(es) unworthy. And so I reached into the deep recesses of my Working On folder and plucked 3 poems out. Neither the best of the unworthy nor the worst, they were sent off on a virtual journey to the mysterious realm where professional readers pass judgment and I promptly forgot about them. It was, therefore, a bit of a surprise when the editor contacted me to ask if my triplets were still available.
And that, my friend, is how my 3 latest published poems found their way out and up from the place where poems go to die. They are shy in the light of day, so your compassion is warranted. I’ll share one of them here, and the others are viewable by clicking the link below.
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Circuitry
If My Daughter Were Among the Uvalde Dead
I would want to squeeze my trembling body
through that tiny crack—
the one that grows slightly wider
with each passing decade—
that sliver of an opening
in the door to the other side.
I would want to get there before she does,
be the waiting ghost mother
with my arms
like wings
wide open wide
like her eyes would be
as she lands, dazed and stupefied
in the place where bodies cannot follow.
I would want
to pull the remnants
of terror and trauma
right out of her sparkling baby soul
cast it off
like everything else we leave behind
when we die.
Poet’s note: I threw this poem into the dead letter office on my MAC because it felt like I was inserting myself into a circumstance I’ve never experienced. I have, in fact. no clue what bereaved parents really go through, and it felt like a reader might think I’ve no right to poem about it.
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Thanks, as always, for reading!
–Melinda
*My first full-length book is due out this fall. I’ll be boring you to tears with the details as soon as I have them.