Thursday, October 8, 2015

Dear Poetry Magazine







Dear Editor, Poetry Magazine:


When I looked through the collection of magazines that the library I work at carries, considering suitable venues for my short, piercing, yet strangely rambling essays, I'll admit my eye skittered blindly past the cover of Poetry Magazine. But after composing dozens of hopeless letters to magazines ranging from Tropical Fish Hobbyist to Vanity Fair, none of them appropriate mediums for my work, I suddenly realized the one place my work really does belong is in your magazine.

I am a poet.

Everyday I light up the Internet with my beautiful, luminous prose poems. Do you know what the Internet says when I do?

"SHUT OFF THAT DAMN LIGHT!"

Yes, the Internet loves its darkness. Seeing as you're old and wise enough to be the editor of Poetry Magazine, I am surely safe in saying to you about the Internet: That sure didn't work out like we hoped!

But I digress.

Even though it took me awhile to notice that I write world class poems, you, a big time editor, were probably keenly aware of it before the first sentence of this letter was through.

"Boy!" You probably exclaimed. "This guy could write the wings off a chicken! I can't wait to see what kind of crazy poetry he's got for me today!"

And here I must disappoint you.

I suspect that you are the only magazine in the world, with the possible exception of Catster Magazine (formerly Cat Fancy Magazine), who receives more submissions per issue than they have actual readers per issue.

I'm just saying I feel for you. So before you toss this letter on your giant "Have Read" pile, and before you pick up the next submission from your even taller, dreaded "To Be Read" pile, I make this pledge to you:

Even though my prose poems would be among the most earth shattering and wonderful work your magazine has ever published, I vow to do my part in balancing your books. I promise that I will never, ever, submit to you or your successors any work of any kind for publication in your magazine.

You have my word.

Signed and entered this day etc. etc.





F. Calypso











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