Workshop by Zoë Brigley | Social media compiled and article written by Frances Turpin
Welcome to Overcoming Rejection, a series focused on dealing with the worst but most inescapable part of being a writer. In June 2022, we asked our friends on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram what the best advice they could give to someone who’s work had been rejected would be. This series is a collection of that advice, as well as some insights and thoughts from the Poetry Wales team.
Poetry Wales editor Zoë Brigley has written an ‘Overcoming Rejection’ workshop to accompany this series, which you can download here:
This week, we are specifically looking at having your work rejected from a magazine – something that, as a magazine that unfortunately has to reject people’s work, we should be pretty good at talking about! Zoë Brigley talks about this in her workshop:
Probably the most common type of rejection for writers is rejection from magazines. As editor now of Poetry Wales, I very often have to reject good poems, and having an editor’s standpoint definitely changes your view of the process.
Very often in the past when submitting poems, if I have had a rejection, I have gone through the gamut of emotions that we all do. We might ask ourselves what about our work is lacking. We might wonder if we will ever manage to be published there. We may even question whether the work has been read properly. All these reactions are quite natural for the self-conscious and thoughtful writer. I do however have some advice as someone who has been that writer processing a rejection and the editor forced to make those rejections.
Zoë Brigley, ‘Overcoming Rejection’ workshop
Big Bad Editors
Editors can be the fairy godmothers or the big bad wolves of submissions, depending on which way things go for the submitter. When we’re talking about rejection, more often than not it’s easy to think of the editor who turned down your work as the Bad Guy, tearing your hard work into shreds and cackling away in their ivory tower. In reality – at least, at Poetry Wales, and most other journals we know – the editor is a human being with a deadline, a limited number of pages to fill, and upwards of thousands of poems to sift through. When you read an issue of our magazine, you are reading fifty or so of the best poems that came in during our submissions window – but you are certainly not reading the only fifty that we liked. More often than not, truly excellent poems have to be set aside because they don’t fit the theme quite as well as other submissions, or because they would take up too much space in the issue, or because we have too many other poems on a similar subject, or one of a million other reasons that, crucially, has nothing to do with the quality of the poem, or our opinions on it. It simply, for whatever reason, doesn’t ‘fit’ into the issue as well as another piece of work.
Here at Poetry Wales, we try to find other things to do with the poems that we love, but can’t use in the magazine. Most of our How I Write a Poem interviews are poems that were submitted to the magazine, but which we couldn’t fit into the pages, no matter how hard we tried. And even then we still can’t feature everyone we’d like to – there just isn’t enough time.
There is an element of grief involved in receiving a rejection for a piece of work that you’re proud of and have put a lot of time, effort, and emotion into. Blaming the person who rejected you is natural – and, as Tom Sastry pointed out, perfectly understandable:
“You have to treat people well, including editors who have chosen not to take your work. Decisions are final and must be respected. But that’s it. So long as you don’t behave badly, you don’t have to be brilliant at not taking it personally. It’s fine to be unreasonably disappointed.”
Tom Sastry via Facebook
Being On Theme
While not taking rejection personally is difficult, Jane Burn had advice on how to try and take the sting off:
“Tell yourself that there is a very specific themed call-out and there might be work that fits the theme better. Tell yourself that a theme might naturally emerge (as if often the case with submissions) and your work is too different from that, or too different from everything-this is the case with 80% of my rejections! Tell yourself that they just don’t like your work-this happens, and it’s legitimate. There are poems / subjects / styles you don’t like too and editors are no different. Editors are human too! If I tell myself all of this, it helps (mostly) to keep the submissions process in perspective, though it has taken me a very long time to get to this stage (and I still fall from grace, every now and then!)”
Jane Burn via Facebook
Keeping in mind that editors are often looking at work through the lens of fitting into a particular theme is useful. At Poetry Wales, we always try to make it clear what we want when we open our submissions window. While we are always open to poetry on all themes, we will usually have a specific concept or idea for the next issue that we’re particularly interested in reading work on. You will be able to find that information on the Submissions page on our website (where we also have FAQs about our process), on the inside cover of each magazine (for the next issue) and on our Submittable page. You can usually also look ahead to our plans for the next couple of issues, too, in case your work might fit in better with one of those.
As Jane points out, even when a publication hasn’t specified a theme for their call-out, one will often naturally emerge during the process of reviewing submissions. As Rebecca Lowe said:
“the process of editorial selection is as much about knowing which poems work well together for a particular audience as it is about judging skill.”
Rebecca Lowe via Facebook
George Sawers adds
“I have sometimes looked at a published magazine and thought ‘my work was better than some of the things in there’, but then a few minutes later thought ‘on the other hand, maybe it just wouldn’t have fit.’ It’s useful to remember that the editors may well be putting work together with a purpose and feel that I can’t know. On the other hand I have often also been surprised at what work of mine is taken… the crucial point is that you really don’t know at what point your own voice and perspective is going to seem relevant or important to anyone else, you just have to try to be as faithful as possible to that voice.”
George Sawers via Facebook
Rebecca Lowe also reminded us that:
“nothing has fundamentally changed. The poem I wrote is just as good or bad as it was before – it’s just one person’s assessment of it. If I always wrote worrying about what others thought, ninety per cent of my poems would be safe and predictable. So if I’ve got something authentic and original out on paper, I’ve achieved my purpose. If people like it and can relate, that’s a bonus.”
Rebecca Lowe via Facebook
From an editor’s perspective, TheWeeSparrowPoetryPress said:
“As an editor I hate sending rejections but sometimes a poem just doesn’t quite fit. As a poet I used to hate getting rejections but the joy of having work published balances it out and getting rejections pushes us to improve our writing.”
TheWeeSparrowPoetryPress via Instagram
Sue Spiers has a brilliant way of thinking about submissions:
“I consider poetry submissions like selecting clothes. They aren’t all going to fit, some will be in colours or fabrics you don’t like. Some will be the wrong length, shape or have holes where you like to be covered. You can appreciate the way each garment is made but know it’s not right for your personal taste. Your budget may mean you can only afford one outfit. The clothes you leave in the shop might be just right for another customer. I personally look forward to rejected poems, I can send them to another ‘customer’ to see if it will fit there. It’s difficult, without feedback, to see what needs to change in a poem…whether to take its hem up or wear it with a jacket.”
Sue Spiers via Facebook
Feedback
In an ideal world, we would be able to give individual feedback – or, to use Sue’s metaphor, tailoring advice – to everyone who submits work to us. Unfortunately, we would need a team five times as big, twenty more hours in the day, and several more days in the week to be able to do this. However, feedback on your work is incredibly useful, especially when you are still establishing yourself as a poet. While a rejection in and of itself might seem like all the feedback you need – a big red ‘not good enough’ stamp – as we have discussed above, there are many reasons other than quality for a poem being dismissed by a publication.
Pat Edwards suggested
“if you can, get some feedback. Unlikely from the editor as they don’t usually have time, but from a Stanza group, a trusted poetry friend, a mentor – feedback is crucial and can help cement your faith in the poem or confirm your doubts.”
Pat Edwards via Twitter
Feedback from other writers can help you find any weaknesses in your poem that you might have missed – or give you a boost of confidence in it. Other writers may be able to see how your poem didn’t fit into a theme, or know of publications that your work is more likely to fit in to.
Some useful links to find a writing group:
- Literature Wales have a list of writing groups and literature societies in Wales here
- Young Poets Network has a list of UK-based groups for young writers here
- Poetry London has a list of groups in England (in and outside of London) here
- The Scottish Book Trust has a list of Scotland-based and online groups here
- The Irish Writers Centre has a list of writing groups in Ireland here
- and Power Poetry.org has a list of online writing communities that they recommend here.
Feel free to share your own recommendations for writers groups wherever you are in the comments below, or on our social media posts
Do you have any tips on how to rework a rejected poem? Or do you prefer to work on something entirely new each time you submit? How do you turn rejection into motivation? Let us know in the comments below. The Overcoming Rejection series was created from the collaborative work of our community, and we want it to continue to be a growing source of advice and comfort.
A huge diolch yn fawr to all of the community members whose words have made their way into this post!
More in this series
