This Editing Life

An email I sent to Matt DiGangi regarding the first batch of poetry submissions I reviewed for The Jargon:

Matt,

lol. It's fun to receive an email from a complete stranger that starts out very formal and complementary, and transforms as it goes into a diatribe about finger-fucking someone's knife wounds and tentacle rape. You must look forward to opening your email every day.

I sent rejection letters for most of these poems. The gist of all of the rejections was 'we're going to have to pass on these, but thanks for considering us'. I thought a couple people were promising, so I gave them some more specific encouragement.

Garrison Keillor says in his 'Good Poems' Anthology that some poems are '...like condoms on the beach, evidence that someone was here once and had an experience, but not of great interest to the passerby.' So far, those are pretty much my thoughts exactly about this first bunch.

I can tell this experience is going to deepen my understanding of what makes a good poem. It will definitely be exciting when I finally come across that beach condom that makes me want to climb inside it.