Tracking Your Poetry Submissions
Presented at the It’s About Time Writers
Reading Series at Ravenna Third Place Books in Seattle, Washington on 9 December
2004. Also posted on the It’s About Time website from 2004 to 2017. See also “The Practical Poet: Tracking Your Haiku Submissions,” an essay published
in 1999 that gave rise to the shortened thoughts presented here. Just as an actor needs a stage, a poet needs to publish. Yet how can poets keep track of their submissions in an inexpensive and orderly way? Computer databases offer help with this task, but I use a system that I started before I had a computer—and still prefer it. I write the poem’s title or the entire poem (if short enough) on a 4-by-6-inch index card, and add the places and dates of submission and response. It’s easy to keep track of submissions using these cards, and I can easily shuffle the cards as I decide what to send where, or to sequence them. Because the system is straightforward and uninhibiting, it encourages me to send out my work for publication. Perhaps this system might work for you. Why keep good records of your poetry submissions?
Poem (write the poem on the card if short enough, or keep an alphabetical or numerical master file in a binder or in a computer file that corresponds to your submission cards by title or first line).
Anthology Contest
if submitted for a contest, I write “WON” and state the placement “Returned” (one need not use the term “Rejected”)
Expected volume/issue/date (usually specified by the editor) Editor’s name (handy to have for future correspondence) Page number (when a copy is received) Payment ($ or copies, if any) Rights you offered or the editor acquired (if different from one-time serial rights)
Name of prize won (and $ amount, if any) Expected name/date/publisher of publication (if any) Include other miscellaneous notes, such as whether an editor offered comments, or if he or she was helpful, professional, abrasive, or whatever, if you’re asked to resubmit or make a particular revision, or whether the poem appeared with typos. You may also want to keep track of proofs (dates received and sent). Arrangement of index card boxes (separate boxes for each category):
Resources to use for making submissions:
“Ode on a Grecian Urn” Written: July 1819, Hampstead Heath (at cricket match between Hampstead Harriors and Devon Allstars) Romantic Poets Monthly — 9 Aug 1819 (£2 reading fee!) — Returned 10 Dec 1819 (slow!) C. and J. Ollier — 12 Dec 1819 — Returned 24 Dec 1819 Taylor and Hessey — 5 Jan 1820 — ACCEPTED 7 Feb 1820 (Editor John Taylor suggested changing “Beauty is love, love beauty” to “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,” which isn’t half bad.) è Published in Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems (London: Taylor and Hessey), 1 July 1820. Michael Dylan Welch is
a poet, editor, and publisher. In addition to editing for Microsoft, he edits and
publishes Tundra: The Journal of the Short Poem and award-winning haiku and
tanka books with his publishing company, Press Here. His poems have appeared in
anthologies from W. W. Norton, Andrews McMeel, Kodansha, Tuttle, and other publishers,
and more than 2,500 of his poems have appeared in hundreds of magazines in ten languages.
Michael publishes essays, book reviews and academic articles (on E. E. Cummings,
Lewis Carroll, and other topics), and has edited 200+ trade books as a senior editor
for major publishers. He is president of the Tanka Society of America (which he
founded in 2000), vice president of the Haiku Society of America, and vice president
of the Eastside Writers Association. In addition, he is also director of the Haiku
North America conference, coming to Centrum in Port
Townsend, Washington, from September 21 to 25, 2005, and of the Poets in the Park
conference, in Redmond. [bio from December 2004] |