The 27th already! What appeared to be “plenty of time” last week has slimmed itself down considerably. I will be Ok, but an extra week would be handy. The three rejected haibun are, I have decided, going out again with a couple of words tweaked. I’m happy they were good enough for an acceptance last time out. It is just, as I have found before, that some editors don’t like my style. If I was a bad writer, everybody would return my work. If I were a patchy writer of variable quality, all editors would reject me at some point. Generally that doesn’t happen. Some editors accept me. others reject. Once in a while something will be rejected unexpectedly, but that can usually be put down to (a) it being a bit too obscure or (b) rushed and not good enough.
In an ideal world I would, I suppose, be able to write to a quality that it was impossible to reject, or would be skilful enough to appeal to all readers. So far that hasn’t happened, though I continue to practice writing with the aim of global domination.
Allysum with ladybird
However, I have just looked through the index of a recent magazine. and looked for the names of the three editors who have recently rejected me. They aren’t in. It could be that they didn’t submit anything, or it could be that they were unsuccessful. It’s difficult to tell, but I do know that one of them has written on the subject of how many times they have submitted some poetry before it was accepted. That article was why I always give poems a second and third chance.
It’s a bit like writing long pieces of text – much of the work and skill is in the rewriting. With poetry, much of the time is used in post mortems of returned submissions. To be a good writer of haibun, it’s not enough to write well (which is hard enough) but you have the suit an editor, follow fashion (without being hackneyed) and do a number of other things I haven’t grasped yet. I know that sounds strange, but it’s all part of the constant learning process – the known unknowns and the unknown unknowns of poetry
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Your reflections on writing poetry has made me think about my own writing, especially the rewriting. Part of the problem with blogging is that there isn’t much rewriting. The goal, even when posting once a week, is to get the piece posted. I suppose that is also a strength, working on a regular deadline.
Looking back at old blogs posts I am often mortified by the number of typos. Even with recent ones, to be honest. Poetry is the best words in the best order, my blogging, as you say, tends to be any word before midnight. 🙂