Email from Blackbird today accepting my poem "Opening the Hive." It will appear in November. Hooray!
There's a funny story about this one, which I almost hesitate to tell here for fear it will make a fine journal look less than "on top of things." But it's so amusing, really. I'd originally submitted this poem (and a few others) to Blackbird way back in November 2004. After a slightly-more-than-reasonable time (okay, almost a year) had elapsed with no word, I dropped them an inquiry; they looked for my poems but had to conclude they'd fallen into a black hole, and invited me to resubmit. A few months later I did just that, though I didn't send the same poems over again, I sent new ones. They rejected that batch, and I'd sort of written them off when out of the blue I got today's email. Meanwhile, of course, the poems from the original batch -- including "Opening the Hive" -- got sent out elsewhere. Fortunately for me, the "elsewhere" in this case is a journal which explicitly welcomes simultaneous submissions, so a quick note in their direction withdrawing the poem should take care of things without any awkwardness.
In Blackbird's defense I will say that the editor with whom I've corresponded has been nothing but courteous, helpful, and apologetic about the black hole thing, and responded immediately when I inquired; and I really like the journal, so this is a happy ending.
7 comments:
Congratulations on the poem acceptance. It always seems, to me, a small miracle, whenever it happens. (I always wonder, when a magazine accepts something, if they've somehow made a mistake...)
Once a number of years ago I sent poems to a magazine, heard nothing for several months, then (without ever having received word of the acceptance) I received a contributor copy in the mail out of the blue, containing two of the poems I'd sent. The magazine had a different name than the one I'd sent to -- between the time I sent the poems and the time I got the contributor copy, the magazine had changed its name. At least they were nice enough to send the contributor copy...
Congrats! Yayyyyy!
I always think the same thing, Lyle.
Lyle, Jilly, thanks! Acceptances do sometimes feel like a bit of a miracle. Especially since I never guess right about which poem in a packet is most likely to get taken -- a lot of the time it's the one I threw in at the last minute "just on the off chance."
Yeah! Very good news. I really like Blackbird. I like how they include author photos. Have you picked out your photograph?
Eduardo - ugh! Maybe I can send them a cat picture instead. *grin* I don't have very many pictures of myself that I can stand... maybe I can persuade someone to snap one in Provincetown.
Blackbird is one of my favorite journals! Big Congrats!!!
Thanks, Suzanne!
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