Lukewarm acceptance is more bewildering than outright rejection. Martin Luther King
After getting a string (a long string) of rejections from a number (a large number) of journals rejection is somehow on my mind. The rejections came pro forma and personal with either a slap on the back, or a “gee, we almost took…”. MLK’s quote is apt for near misses. Sometimes a pat on the cheek is harder to take than a hard slap; you’re not sure whether or not to offer the other cheek.
With a slap, you at least know where you stand. I’ve had near misses with encouragement to submit again only to be rejected with another “we liked your poem, but…”. I know that an offer to resubmit isn’t a prelude to an acceptance, but I can’t help feeling having been set up (“oh, c’mon, jus’ take the damn thing…”).
The writer Henry Miller said he liked clean, quick good-byes with no looking back, no regrets. I like my rejections that way, too. Give me my eggs over and stepped on, not over easy. If I can’t handle rejection, what right have I to make a submission in the first place?
An Impression of Regret
Try to capture in oils
the rapture of fine rain
while painting in a torrent.
The pigments run and fade
like a flower’s colors
when severed from its stem.
Are we miserable
when we should be blissful?
Regret forms the foundation
for all future building.
(copyright by Geordie de Boer. Appeared in Right Hand Pointing, July 2011)
This poem could be titled “An Impression of Rejection” and work as well. (Check out this fine journal, Right Hand Pointing, by the way.) Try being “ sunny and bright” in a downpour of verbal abuse. Your colors will run and fade. But, rejection can provide the springboard for achievement. By the way, I did have some acceptances after that string of rejections.
Oh, yeah – here’s a painting titled “Rejection”.
http://fineartamerica.com/featured/rejection-paula-andrea-pyle.html
Rather uplifting, what?
