TO SPARE OR TO SCRAP

This week is the beginning of my volunteer work at a local lit magazine in my city. They needed a new poetry reader, and I hopped into their inbox as fast as I could. Poetry has kept me fed for these past three years, when my ability to focus and be interested in longer works degraded, and when finishing not just a book but a short story felt like an impossible task.

Although I follow the lit mag's twitter account and subscribe to their newsletter, I never saw any call-out for a new reader. It's possible I missed an email, but their twitter has been bare recently. So, this is to say, I was lucky that I was looking through their website when I did and saw the call-out for a new volunteer! The application was simple, just your name and email and experience (any!) with poetry, but they had two optional additional sections that I knew I couldn't pass up if I wanted to stick out. I skipped the first one, but the second was asking for a mini-review on one of their previously published poems, if I had read any. At that point I had not, since they don't provide any free poems online, but what's a quick purchase of some past issues to fix this little problem? I grabbed 3 pdf's and tumbled on in. Found a poem I liked, wrote a mini-paragraph, and submitted. There was also a poem I did not like—one that was hard to wrap my brain around, whose style rubbed me the wrong way, and one I could possibly explain a reason why I wouldn't publish it. It actually bothered me, though I can't remember why now. I almost wrote about that poem in the application instead—
what a terrible idea, right? Sometimes I get these self-sabotaging urges and can reason away why they would work for me instead of obviously against me. Perhaps I could've shown how I knew what I was talking about—but the lit mag decided to publish it, so obviously they saw the poem's worth. Why give them an example of how I would go against their current team's tastes? I'm glad I slapped myself out of that misstep.

But now, with my first small bundle of poems to rate and review, I'm worried about being either too picky or generous. I've read for lit mags before, at my university. My university had two presses: the student-run lit mag, and the poetry press run by three of our Creative Writing professors. At both I practiced being generous and picky. The problem? At both of those internships, there was plenty of such obviously horrendous poetry. Plenty of the poems just weren't publishable yet.
My small slush pile now?
I can see how great all the poems are. They're interesting, in their own rights. I could make a case for why they should move on in the round. But more than that, personally I also don't like most of them, not enough to give them the thumbs up. One or two submissions were so close! So close! Yet I'm on the fence about them. When rating them, it's either "thumbs up", "thumbs down", or "maybe". It was like this at my previous internships, so rating submissions is not a foreign concept. The "maybe" might seem like a godsend, but here's the thing: we always want to use the "maybe" sparingly. So I'm leaning towards "no" for most of the poems in this week's round. I'm playing a game of hot potato all by myself.

I'm a first reader, so I'm the one setting their eyes first on the slush, and I'm probably not the only one reading them. Yet, I'd hate to have too high standards. Part of this is most definitely due to the fact that I'm not used to what this particular lit mag's standards are, so I can't tell if I'm being too picky or too generous. Maybe I should study those 3 issues I bought again. Reread all those already published poems? It's not like the poetry section of each issue were that long, since this lit mag focuses on fiction/prose over anything else. Once I get a better feel, I'll stop overthinking everything and find my groove.
—This isn't my first rodeo, just a new horse to break. It'll be okay.

RECC: 2 LOVE POEMS

Here are two poems that I've been coming back to recently and want to share.

The first is a Whitman poem; I've been trying to give him another chance, especially since I can't recall why I turned my nose up at his poetry in high school. Perhaps it had to do with how he romanticizes the working class but isn't of it himself? Something like that, which could be entirely wrong; my memories are fuzzy about what I learned. The second poem is one I read a year ago and couldn't wrap my brain around. I sat down with it a few months ago and dissected it, since it was nagging me. And once I did? I fell in love. Perfect for a love poem, huh?
I don't want to hype these two pieces up, but both poems make me go haywire.

+++

"When I Heard at the Close of the Day", by Walt Whitman

When I heard at the close of the day how my name had been receiv’d with plaudits in the capitol, still it was not a happy night for me that follow’d,
And else when I carous’d, or when my plans were accomplish’d, still I was not happy,
But the day when I rose at dawn from the bed of perfect health, refresh’d, singing, inhaling the ripe breath of autumn,
When I saw the full moon in the west grow pale and disappear in the morning light,
When I wander’d alone over the beach, and undressing bathed, laughing with the cool waters, and saw the sun rise,
And when I thought how my dear friend my lover was on his way coming, O then I was happy,
O then each breath tasted sweeter, and all that day my food nourish’d me more, and the beautiful day pass’d well,
And the next came with equal joy, and with the next at evening came my friend,
And that night while all was still I heard the waters roll slowly continually up the shores,
I heard the hissing rustle of the liquid and sands as directed to me whispering to congratulate me,
For the one I love most lay sleeping by me under the same cover in the cool night,
In the stillness in the autumn moonbeams his face was inclined toward me,
And his arm lay lightly around my breast — and that night I was happy.

. . .
( thoughts )

+++

"Soup Is One Form of Salt Water", by Heather Christle

I am making borscht   please do not laugh at me   I seem to have ruined my
soul   the quality of television programming grows stronger all the time   soon we
will live in the ocean   we will all return to the ocean   my hands are bright
pink   like I have been applauding you for hours   my love for you is louder than I
know   I saw a show last night   there were four thousand brides left in Iceland   I
was laughing   but it was not funny   the brides looked embarrassed   and cold   I
must not wash anywhere but a tide pool   I must use starfish   to scrub at my
hands   I am writing this to say   I am not leaving you forever   I am going to get
better   and then I’ll come home

. . .
( thoughts/dissection )