The implied,
By rob mclennan • Mar 30th, 2010 • Category: On Writing, Poetry, RantsI recently received a rejection for a poetry manuscript by a noted university press, in part through a “reader’s report” (filled with typos and nonsensical sentences) suggesting that I spend more time on the manuscript to fill in the “missing words” in the poems. The implication infuriated, as though deliberate word-placement somehow came out of carelessness, even after some dozen or two trade poetry collections. How does a poem get read with the presumption that a repeated gesture is considered oversight? Disagree if you like, argue for stronger or decide you prefer something else, but how are these labeled mistakes? I’m neither mis-writing nor writing the poem you want.
What appeals to me in the composition of a poem, these days, is in writing not up to the line but pulling slightly back; saying less than is said, and yet, the same. There are holes astute readers can fill; and if not? A poem doesn’t work towards meaning but instead, works against it. This we already know. Against, even to the point of sabotage. Why does this get so misunderstood, so easily dismissed? Is every poem with a title actually meant to be about what it claims? How dull, and how erringly simplistic; where’s the fun in that? I call this a love poem; does that mean I love a lake?
My collection of ghazals, a compact of words (Salmon, 2009), was originally rejected by a prestigious Canadian publisher near a decade ago, the cover letter suggesting perhaps that I write my ideas out in prose, before constructing poems. Does the editor misunderstand, somehow, the entire genre of poetry? How does the poem presume to still be nothing more than bastard child of prose? And this from a publisher known for producing poetry collections, including award-winning ones.
At the Vancouver launch of four new titles, Talonbooks editor Karl Siegler introduced me and my gifts (2009) through referencing jazz, and how my poem played around the silences and empty spaces, the space between the notes; not just what was there in the text, but through what deliberately left out. As Erin Mouré said recently during a panel on poetic meaning, not a poem until the reader, there, to fill out the poem. I leave holes for the reader to fill; otherwise, what have they to do?
By the end of his life, John Newlove was boiling so down to the bone, he took more words out of his poems than he had to put in. I’ve always admired his boiling down, perhaps the best example of the lyric down to the essence. One of his last (published) poems reads:
And then, his “translation” of an Irving Layton poem, with the title borrowed from Robert Frost, becoming his last poem, new or otherwise, published before his death in 2003:
Do critics complain that Christian Bök doesn’t use enough rhyme-scheme? So why ignore the serious formal structures of, say, David McGimpsey, for the sake of his hilarious pop references, dismissing a collection that should have won major awards, it seems, as frivolity, and not “serious verse”? Are “flarf” authors, such as ryan fitzpatrick, accused of not understanding narrative storytelling? If books and manuscripts are to be (inevitably) judged, why not on their own merits, and not through seemingly-arbitrary alternate methods? A square peg, round hole.
There is the implied, and the boiling down. Does a poem do anything else? Certainly. Does a poem infer, present, hold, hold back? Some do, sure, though not all. Why not take a poem for what it is, and not what it isn’t? Why not simply take the poem at its word?
rob mclennan is an Ottawa resident born and raised. The author of some twenty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, his most recent titles are the poetry collections gifts (Talonbooks), a compact of words (Salmon Poetry, Ireland), kate street (Moira), wild horses (University of Alberta Press) and a second novel, missing persons (The Mercury Press). An editor and publisher, he runs above/ground press, Chaudiere Books (with Jennifer Mulligan), The Garneau Review (ottawater.com/garneaureview) seventeen seconds: a journal of poetry and poetics (ottawater.com/seventeenseconds) and the Ottawa poetry pdf annual ottawater (ottawater.com). He spent the 2007-8 academic year in Edmonton as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta, and regularly posts reviews, essays, interviews and other notices at robmclennan.blogspot.com. He will be spending much of the next year in Toronto.
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That’s a bizarre comment from a publisher.
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Institutional rot. The same institutions we admire have become too inbred. There is a cant one is expected to follow. University magazines fancy themselves the brokers of talent, which suggests of course that unless the submission complies with a soft notion of what belongs in the Norton or Oxford, the submission ought be rejected out-of-hand.
I like to play the historical test w/ these publications. I don’t think there’s a lit mag in the Anglophone world that would publish ‘Y is a well known athlete’s wife,” or however that cummings poem goes. The problem is that these lit mags are inbred and we can see the flaw w/ their methodology in terms of the differential between the audience for print poetry and the audience for oral formulaic poetry (rap). The adjective ‘poetic’ is still highly regarded–so why is it that poetry itself is not? The answer is that the institutions we admire have failed the readers.
I used to take my rejections personally. Now I don’t. You write as if you had a correspondence with God, not some jackass editor. This is part of the problem. I have more thoughts on the matter, but this will do for now.
Thanks for initiating the discussion. And if I may: http://toylit.blogspot.com
-KW
To quote Morrissey: “Rejection is one thing, but rejection from a fool is cruel”
(from the song ‘I Don’t Mind If You Forget Me’ on the album _Viva Hate_)
I often think the literary establishment is not only entrenched, but forever doomed to be trapped in the past, and wouldn’t recognize modern poetry if it slapped them in the face. It’s as if they can only see artistic merit in something only if some other entrenched institution recognizes it as art first, and are completely unwilling to take a chance when it comes to acknowledging newer, younger writers. Yet very often it’s the newest writers who are most willing to take the risks and make bold, courageous attempts at writing, the kinds of artistic leaps of faith which keep the art vital and progressive rather than stagnant and stuck in nostalgia and hackneyed romanticizing of the past.
It must be all the more irksome because it’s not like you’re a n00b upstart in the art, you’ve paid your dues and earned the respect of your peers not merely with some nascent talent but a finely-tuned craft that is the result of many years (decades, even) of hard work.
It’s a pity there aren’t many publishers like the late Jack McClelland, a publisher with the kind of vision to recognize the importance of new Canadian writers and making the effort to publish previously underappreciated writers and giving them the kind of exposure to become the literary giants they are now. While I imagine there are still some publishers out there who have the enthusiasm and love of new writers/writing, many today may lack the clout that the likes of McClelland wielded in the heyday of McClelland & Stewart.
The reader who demanded more words is an idiot.