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Wednesday, April 22, 2009

NaPoWriMo #21: Rites of Passage

Dear Poet,
thank you for your submission.
We regret your work does not meed our needs
at this time.

We regret your work does not meet our needs now
or at any time in the future. Please
do not send more. Your work has too much nostalgia.
It is too full of cicadas and chickens. We receive
many fine poems every day, far more than we can use.
Yours are not among them.

We suggest you study examples of futurism,
post-modernism and semiotics. Do not rely
too heavily on metaphor. Study the work
in our very fine journal. Then you will understand
what kind of work we can use. Nevertheless,

if you send more we will still sent them back.
Bake a cake, invite your friends and family,
have a party. Do not read your poetry.
Read them your rejection letters. Since we wrote them,
we know that they are very fine and well worth reading.
Now you are a real poet.

For readwritepoem, where we were asked to consider little celebrated rites of passage. I believe rejection letters, particularly first rejection letters, should definitely be celebrated. (Yes, this sort of poem has been done before. When you only have a day, you do what you can).

4 comments:

www.yesrousselot.wordpress.com said...

Hilarious!
Seriously, i can tell you are speaking from experience ;)
I'll keep my own rejections handy, just in case i can come up with such a pearl.

Anonymous said...

Oww! No seriously, I'm laughing so hard my sides hurt!
Catherine, you should never give yourself more than ten minutes to write. These "no time, must scribble now!" poems are gorgeous.

January said...

Love it--this lin eespecially:

"It is too full of cicadas and chickens."

Very funny and so true.

Crafty Green Poet said...

this is entertaining, it made me smile.