Sunday, January 28, 2007

Flurry

Last night, babysitting involving an Olsen twins movie. Starring Steve Guttenberg. Weep for me. A little?

***

Stressful days, though as I said to a friend, I'm shedding some of that stress. But I think it's more accurate to say I'm becoming better at compartmentalizing it. Boxing it up.

Still, I'm finding the margins between feeling good and awful, rested and wrecked, shrink. Every other day it seems like I hit a wall at some point and have to drag myself.

***

I declined an acceptance from a good journal. And I kind of feel bad about it. They wanted a poem but only if I agreed to lose 9 lines in the middle. And I just didn't agree with the edits. I've only declined edits twice before: once over a comma and once over a change in tense. Both those journals still wanted the poems in question.

It feels rude, almost, to disagree, like I don't appreciate their interest and attention. But this was the right decision to make, I believe. The poem will find another home.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Paul, you were right not to compromise. It's YOUR work, and I'll bet a good deal of thought went into those nine lines. They deserve to stay. What was their reason? Space?

Justin Evans said...

Paul:

I agree. I've agreed to two changes as well. Both were because I had way too much poem for what was there.

I have disagreed on several changes as well. It's a matter of what is best fo the poem.

John Gallaher said...

I've been asked several times to rethink small things in poems. It's so amazing to me that some people read poems so closely as to actually have a reaction -- any reaction -- that I've always embraced the calls to revise.

Of course, not always in ways the editors were thinking, which is another conversation entirely.

Leslie said...

Me=naive.
I had no idea editors did this. My poems have all been taken as is or rejected as is. Huh.

I kinda love that there are editors out there paying that much attention.

Even if totally wrong.

Paul said...

I've had it happen several times over the years and almost always I've agreed with the editors; the suggestions were usually very smart, very deft. I appreciate the attention.

Anonymous said...

Just for the record, I want to say that Steve Guttenberg is so under-appreciated.

I bet he would have accepted the edits.