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I’ve never done a thread before! Here’s a thread: I’ve been submitting to @poetrymagazine unsuccessfully for ~20 years, since back when I'd walk my envelopes of poems to the post office. 1/8
In 1999 when I got my 1st paper rejection slips from Joseph Parisi, I was still doing my MFA at UVA. My classmate Kevin McFadden created a papier-mâché sculpture out of all our rejections & dubbed it the "death mask of Litmagamemnon" & we added more slips every month. 2/8
We also started adding chewed gum, cigarette butts, & other detritus to it. I think it's still in the @UVACWP student lounge. Kevin taught me to view rejection as something communal & vaguely hilarious. All writers should have friends like Kevin. Anyway, 3/8
on par with how 2020 is generally going, after all these years, I *finally* got a poem accepted by @poetrymagazine from the slush pile back in April. My poem is now online--in the, um, July/August issue. 4/8
I have many feelings about this, & I've made all of them clear to the editors in emails. I've already donated any money I will receive from my poem to the National Bailout Collective, COVID Bailout NYC, and the Black Trans Protestors Emergency Fund. But 5/8
I want to take a minute to celebrate the fact that I’m honored & glad my poem is living next to poems I love by @EduardoCCorral @RosebudBenOni @CPhillipsPoet #RaeArmantrout @MelissaMCrowe #BarbaraTran & #PatriciaLiu! I hope people read their luminous work: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/issue/153781/july-august-2020
My poem is a tiny one from a larger project I've been working on for the past 3+ years about sea-level rise & architecture in Miami, w/ journalist & photographer @annabarryjester - here’s Anna's photo of the Mammoth in the poem (a #DamienHirst sculpture @FaenaMiami):
