Writing a Visitor Poem

Over the last week, I've been using the Writer's Digest prompts to write several poems. 

For this morning's prompt, I decided to go back to Robert Lee Brewer's April 2nd prompt to write a "Visitor poem", a poem that is about you visiting someone or someone visitng you. 

Over the last year, I've written too many poems focused on animals so I decided to avoid the pitfall of a surprise visit from an animal.  Last week, I got the chance to visit a couple for a few days with a five month old kiddo so I thought why not write about an unexpected person arriving at the door of a couple with a new born.  As you'll see by the quote I found a little later, the poem takes a positive spin with the unexpected visitor. 

Sometimes when I'm writing prompts, I need a little push as well.  The push may be writing down a couple of remembered stories, perhaps reading a couple of articles on parenting, or searching for quotes on parenting or visitors.  In this scenario, I decided to look up quotes regarding visitors and came across this one:

If it were not for your guests all houses would be graves.

Kahlil Gibran

Kahlil Gibran was a Lebanese-American artist, poet, and writer.  This line can be found in his poem Sand and Foam.

This quote helped me zero in on what I wanted to say in the poem.  Although it is only two drafts in and I'm known to complete a poem between 8 and 11 drafts, I'm feeling pretty confident about the imagery in the poem. 

In fact, the Writer's Digest prompts have surprised me as every poem I've written over the past week feels promising. 

Surviving the Submission Process

The most challenging part of the writing process (for me at least) is the magazine submission process.  I can revise poems for hours on end but sending them out... well... it's a bit of a nail biter.

There's the research.  Flipping through magazines.  Searching for magazines online.  Reading the online magazines.  Does my poetry fit here?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  Oh, definitely not here.  Hours pass and you find that either you have no magazines to send to that day or you are just so tired from researching that you'll send a submission tomorrow or maybe next week to that one magazine you happened upon.

Then there's the submission itself.  What poems do I want to send?  In what order?  Which poem is my strongest poem?  Do I have any typos in my poems?  Read.  Read again.  And if you are like me, you find yourself tweaking a poem before you send it out even though you thought you were done with it.  Zoinks.  

Okay, poems picked.  Now to read the magazine's guidelines AGAIN because you can never read them too many times.  This magazine accepts online submissions.  This magazine likes attachments.  This magazine wants a biography.  This magazine went to the market.  This magazine went wee wee wee all the way home.  :)

Whew.  

On to typing up the submission cover letter (I have a standard one I use because I would go mad if I wrote a personal cover letter for each submission).

Then either stick it in an envelope and find that stamp book or click the send button on your e-mail.  For some reason, clicking the send button is always more daunting.

And there it goes.

But wait...

There's more.

Now you must wait for the submission to come back.  It could be days.  It could be months.  It could never come back.  And if it comes back, it could be a rejection or five rejections in one week.  

Are you pumped up about the process?  Sounds awesome, doesn't it?

So how do I survive said process?

Well, the number one thing I do is talk to other poets.  It's always nice to hear that so and so is on the same queasy boat ride with you.  You can do this through social connections online (perhaps a submission support group) or just by talking one on one with another poet in your community.  I completely recommend it.  Your stress will reduce and surprisingly your productiveness will go up.

What are my stats this month?

3 rejections

1 acceptance

And my April stats (which seemed must worse before because I got the 3 May rejections right after the 4 April rejections, which made me forget the fact that I had any acceptances that month):

4 rejections

1 acceptance

I may keep the stats going as I really want to help other poets realize that the process is a long and laborious one but totally worth it.

Prompt This

I remember my first poetry workshop as if it was yesterday.  It was my senior year at Assumption College and John Hodgen had just arrived as the visiting poet. 

Up until that point, I had not worked with or discussed poetry with other poets.  As a young poet and (at the time) short story writer, I always just assumed that writers holed themselves up in their houses and produced masterpieces.  I was not aware at the time that some of the writers I admired actually wrote letters back and forth with other writers or even met with other writers on a regular basis to critique each other's work and discuss the challenge of writing.

Entering John Hodgen's workshop (with a group of very talented college age writers), I was soon introduced to a world that broadened my writing.  One piece of that world was prompt challenges.  At the time, prompts became incredibly important to me.  I actually wrote my first published poem off of a prompt.  In fact, that poem even won first place in the college contest.

Why are prompts important?  Well, they are just another part of the writing process.  We have so much to leverage to get through that inevitable wall we will face (well known as writer's block). 

What are some ways in which I find prompts?  Good question.  Here are some thoughts on leveraging prompts:

• There are some great prompt sites out there.  I am currently referening Writer's Digest and The Man with the Blue Guitar.
• Join a local poetry workshop (or in my case, start a local poetry workshop).  Workshops can be offered by colleges, museums, or just by a local poet who feels inspired to do so.  Some workshops, such as mine, won't necessarily be prompt driven but sometimes even the discussions act as prompts.  Okay, this post isn't about workshops, but I do recommend at least finding a casual group of poets you can meet up with for coffee to keep each other going.  Just realizing that you are all experiencing the same challenges can get you out of a funk.
• Sign up for a poetry retreat where workshops are included.  There are poetry retreats that are silent retreats but unless you prepare yourself with prompts ahead of time, you may find the well dries up pretty fast.
• Ask local poets or even your facebook friends for prompt ideas.  Be weary though of who you ask as not everyone will take you seriously and some of the responses could get frustrating.  In which case, write a poem about receiving a frustrating prompt request.  :)
• Purchase a prompt book or two.  John Hodgen used a book full of prompts throughout the semester to keep us going. 

I'm sure there are other ways to find prompts.  In fact, if you have any suggestions, add them to the comments section below.

My Friend, The Synonym Finder

Often, when I'm working on a new poem, I find myself using the same words I've used in the past.  Although not always a bad habit (if you can say something in a different way with the same words... why not?), I do like to break that habit once and a while.

Over the first ten years of writing poetry, I used the Thesaurus to branch out a bit in my language.  However, about five years ago, I was really struggling to find fresh words.  I was a year into faciliating a poetry workshop with a group of wonderful local poets.  Poet Joyce Heon quickly turned me on to The Synonym Finder by lugging that 1361 page book into workshop one day. 

What surprised me at first was the size and weight of the book. It was enormous and the weight reminded me of carrying around a flour bag in high school pretending it was my kid.

I flipped through it and was amazed at how quickly it became a jumping off point for me from one idea to the next.  Think of the Synonym Finder as a Hitchhiker's Guide to Words. 

I went home that week and purchased a copy through Amazon.  About two years ago, it got lost in the shuffle when I purchased a home.  And quite honestly, I didn't give it a second thought as I was having a good streak. 

A few months ago, I was feeling frustrated over words once again, especially while trying to count syllables and make every word count.  I dug through the endless stack of books in my closet book shelf and found it somewhere at the bottom.  It now gets the back right passenger seat in my car so that whenever I need it, it normally isn't that far away.  I pull it out whenever I feel as if I'm overusing a word in my poetry (the latest culprit was the word "grow"). 

In short, I highly recommend getting this book.  It will not only help you keep things fresh but it will also help you think of images you may not have thought of without a little nudge nudge.

I'm also contemplating attempting rhyme again.  Local poet Sam Lalos recommended a Rhyming Dictionary so that's next on my list to research and purchase.

Keeping Up with Literary Magazines

Over the past couple of years, members of my poetry workshop have been interested in how I keep up with the journal/magazine world.  About a month ago, with tremendous help from Heather Macpherson and Jessica Bane Robert, I held our first submission party. 

During that party, we reviewed magazines and put together poems that could be sent out to magazines.  We even got one submission out the door for a poet during the two hour session.  One submission?  Yup.  You see, keeping up with the magazine world is a lot of work. 

Each weekend, I dedicate about two hours of my time to reviewing magazine submission guidelines (that's two hours on top of my writing/revising time - which is often about five hours in a weekend, if possible - and then add the time actually sending out the poetry submissions if I get the chance).

After about four years of submitting poems on a somewhat regular basis, I now have a couple of resources I use to keep up with which magazines are open for submissions, which magazines have closed to submissions, and which magazines have closed up completely (always disappointing news to get).

The two resources I mainly use are:

• Duotrope Digest: I can either (1) go out to the site and conduct searches by theme (animals, environment, science, etc.), by style (villanelle, ghazal, free verse, etc.) or several other great Advanced Search options (2) or review a weekly e-mail digest that Duotrope sends out broken up by Paying Market Listings Added, Non-Paying Market Listings Added, Fee-based market listings added (my least referenced section), Market Updates (mostly announces what markets have closed), Markets that have opened to submissions, etc.  I recommend the weekly digest to start as it breaks up the magazines in a non-overwhelming way.
• Creative Writers Opportunities List:  A great group that posts calls for submissions and contest information for writers of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction.  Sometimes the amount of e-mails you get are overwhelming but eventually you get used to filtering through what pertains to you and deleting what doesn't.

I also use the Writer's Digest website and Poets & Writers website.  I don't tend to subscribe to print magazines such as Poets & Writers as I'm more of an online geek, but I encourage those who want to subscribe to print digests to do so.  In fact, I just found a couple magazines I may submit to in another workshop member's Poets & Writers magazine.

And now to answer some common questions I get on the submission process.

Do I get overwhelmed with the submission process?

Heck yes.

Do I get stumped about where to send poems?

Heck yes.

Do I get tired of rejections?

Heck yes.

Do I feel like giving up sometimes?

Heck yes.

Is the whole crazy process worth it to me?

Heck yes.