Voices Silenced at Birth

Voices Silenced at Birth

 

 

 

 

"thank you for your submission, unfortunately, we will not be using any of your poems at this 

time" 

wrote the editor, gagging on his own laughter---

knowing the discouraged poet will feel like 

slitting his tedious throat, or blowing up his cacophonous computer

(riotous sounds of stonewalled words)

 

the power of the rejection,

like a discounted advance

asking to dance and getting a coldly polite

"no thank you"

(you're too short, not Robert Redford enough or 

dressed well enough to indicate status)

and your words as well, poor panhandling prosy pitiful and plain Jane

 

"We read your submission carefully"  ( ha ha, yes, he will believe this---)

"we get so many poems, it is impossible to publish all of them"

(chortling, as the editor thinks "i love slamming doors in their pesky little

faces---)  "oh do please submit in future, we would love to read more of your 

work" (even though we didn't actually read these, we just pretended)

and now your poetic ego is upended

 

and Sylvia Plath has company---she is wherever she is now, still trying to get accepted into

Frank O'Conner's short story, writing class---

her embarrassed kids grown up without a mother, one of them

unliving in the same dimension where she found her peace, at last---"Good God Almighty,

peace at last"

a damsel of tragically unfinished business----

 

editors have the power to elate and the power to deflate----

 

and some writers undevelop

as if lacking fortuitous film

they are a photo finished

in flux

 

critics weigh in so heavily they smother the druthers

to poem.

to live

to poem

 

suicide syllables

put their mouths into ego's sheet

and no morning comes,

 

while others gloat over their dawn coffee

never sleeping,

just keeping

would be wordsmiths

 

from ever becoming.

 

 

 

erin-cilberto

9/16/17

Reviews

[Kelly Scheppers]

I think I'd prefer to see myself in a magazine print, and save my book for self publishing for family and friends. I have letters from many years ago when I first started writing and submitting to various publishers - I even saved the letters of rejection that read - word for word - like you stated here.

Well done, Jacob. I'll be happy with being "a would be wordsmith"!

[jacob erin-cilberto]

there is no "would be" Kelly....you are such a good poet...

[Kelly Scheppers]

I appreciate that, Jacob. Thank you so much!

[Tom]

Frustrating indeed when all the hard work, effort and time is so superciliously dismissed by those who ought to know better!

Absorbing poetry Jacob, you wear your heart on your sleeve so unreservedly my friend!

[jacob erin-cilberto]

thank you, Tom---best rejection i have got? one word actually written and in quotation marks "Nope"---that was it.
thanks, Tom.
j.

[Annette Pisano-Higley]

You speak for so many in this tragically honest poem j. "The power of the rejection"-the knife in the heart of creativity and artistic sensitivity. Suicide or out-write murder (not typo). I know this personally. Again brilliant writing, dramatic form and cadence, perfect wordage and metaphors. Kudos always.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

and the young poetic ego, or even the old one, if inexperienced, can be assassinated pretty easily.
j.

[Coyote Poetry]

Years ago I tried to be published in small press. I was published a few times. Many kind letters I received. I do understand the words and thoughts in the poem.
Coyote

[jacob erin-cilberto]

thank you, Coyote...some are kind....not all....and they can be quite dangerous...those who are not..
j.

[Coyote Poetry]

I agree my friend and you are welcome.

[John Alexander McFadyen]

Wow this is a powerful expose of the psyche of the editorial executive who in his/her tsunami of submissions fails to take people's work seriously and only selectively accepts. But so many great people have faced such rejection and yet flourished. Poets usually after death and then there are no guarantees. So well put Jacob!

[jacob erin-cilberto]

yes, usually after death....so true, my friend---
funny how emily dickinson of her 1775 poems, only published 11 in her lifetime...and anonymously.

thank you for your words,
j.