In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

180 The “Po Biz” Submission, Rejection, Money Cal’s approach to student work was inconsistent, often more a gauge of his mood at the moment than of the poem presented in his class. But if Robert Lowell liked a poem, he would go to great lengths for the writer. He took some of my early poems to magazines and showed them to his friends, and it was owing to Cal’s efforts that the editor John Crowe Ransom, who had been Cal’s former college English teacher, published me in the old Kenyon Review. Lowell was generous in promoting his students and friends. But this could backfire. Once Lowell advised me to send my poems to Judson Jerome, an editor of a prestigious poetry magazine. Jerome wrote back that anyone whom Lowell recommended must be a terrible writer, a member of the loathsome East Coast literary establishment, and that there was no way on earth he would even read or consider my work. There seemed to be extra amounts of coffee staining that rejected group of poems. Another time Lowell telephoned me from New York to tell me that he had taken a poem of mine to the New York Review of Books but—this was a typical Lowell put-down—“they were only interested in publishing our crowd.” He had a strong sense of who constituted “our crowd”: Hannah Arendt, Mary McCarthy, and other literary heavies. Ah yes, the East Coast literary establishment. Lowell knew about publishing and rejection. There was a certain law of averages. I had coffee with Robert Lowell and Anne Sexton when they discussed this. They decided that a 3 percent return on submissions was the best one could expect. Anne had kept careful track: “A 3 percent return on the investment.” It was slightly better than the return on “direct mail” or “cold calls.” When one looks at Lowell’s books, one can note how few of the really good poems ever got into magazines before Robert Giroux published them as a collection. Anne Sexton kept all her rejections in a stack of file drawers. God, she claimed, would know when she had accumulated enough. Then He’d send word: “Take her. She’s got a file cabinet full of rejections. Time for a little mercy.” Her file drawers bulged. The rejections seemed to get more insult- • The “Po Biz” 181 ing as poets became more famous. Writers sometimes papered their bathrooms with rejection slips. It was considered a breach of etiquette to send copies of poems. Each submission had to be freshly typed, no carbon paper. This included completed manuscripts also: no multiple submissions allowed. Prospective publishers could hold the work for years. I handed over the business of sending out poems to my husband’s aunt, Pauline “Polly” Spivack. A former executive secretary, a stroke had left her housebound. She enjoyed getting mail, and rejection of my poems would neither devastate nor stop her. I gave her a list of magazines, authorized her to sign my name on the cover letters, and soon she was accumulating a shoebox of rejection slips. Before long Polly was corresponding with editors, signing my name. She wrote supportive notes to conservative columnists, decrying irresponsible youth. She quarreled with liberal political magazines. Soon she was getting chatty letters back. She was also getting a 3 percent return on the poetry submissions . “Polly” got published! And she threw away the rejections before I saw them! Years later I sat next to Howard Moss at a Poetry Society of America awards dinner. Then the poetry editor of the New Yorker, he told me how much he hated to send out his poems, and how he feared rejection. I did not point out that he was able to get round that problem by publishing himself. But I told him about Polly, who had decided to send his magazine a poem of mine every ten days until he finally relented and took one. He enjoyed her lively letters, he said. He wished he had an Aunt Polly too. Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Bishop, Anne Sexton, encouraging by their example , were helpful. When I was sending round the manuscript of my first book, these poets read and made suggestions. Elizabeth Bishop made extensive notes in her tiny unreadable handwriting throughout the typescript. The older poets encouraged me with stories of their own first attempts to get books published. A poet-editor who rejected your work might later apply for a prize or to...

Share