I was going to make a post about email submissions sometime–Rattle has accepted email submissions for as long as I’ve known, but for the first time ever, starting maybe six months ago, we’re actually receiving more email submissions than hard copy. And I used to say that hard copy submissions tend to be stronger, because there’s an admission price (even if it’s only 44 cents), but that’s no longer the case. We had a meeting last week where we accepted 12 poems and 10 had been submitted via email. Those numbers would have always been reversed just a couple years ago. Times are changing fast.

Also, I hope I didn’t sound like I was upset at you personally for not mentioning Rattle, or worse, that I expected some kind of quid quo pro after running the little review. Obviously the odds of being mentioned are slim when there are hundreds of magazines to choose from — it just gets frustrating that it never happens. We have one of the largest audiences outside of Poetry Chicago, sift through more submissions than anyone, publish scads of reviews, etc, etc, but we never make it onto the industry’s radar.

It makes me wonder what I’m doing wrong…although I know the answer. I’m a very poor social networker. Chances are, you’ve met Sven Bikerts and Bruce Covey, and that’s why you thought to ask them for comments for the article. Or maybe you even talked about the subject already at the AWP. And there’s nothing wrong with that, perfectly natural and understandable, and I wouldn’t expect any different. It’s just frustrating that I can’t do a better job in that respect.

Anyway, thanks for the article — if my halfassed post above isn’t enough, know that I enjoyed reading it and wholeheartedly agree with your points. Poetry’s going digital anyway; the sooner we embrace it the better off we’ll be.

Tim

I really appreciate your thoughtful response to my P&W article. Just a couple of quick comments:

-It’s possible something got garbled in the editing process, but I don’t see editors googling a poet _while_ deciding on the poet’s submission. I agree that would be a subversion of the submissions process (much like taking one’s bio note into consideration). People should be judged only by the particular piece they have submitted.

What I meant to refer to was editors who, having accepted and become excited about a poet’s work, Google to see what else they have published. Or–and in this case Google does assist in deliberation–someone who hosts a reading series receives a poet’s name in recommendation and, before extending an invite, Googles them to find a sample of the work.

I hope those scenarios make a bit more sense.

-I was extremely grateful to Rattle for the review of Theories. But in order to focus my argument in a limited space I had preemptively decided that the bulk of the article should only mention journals for whom the web version is the sole publication. In other words, they were conceived and launched as online lit mags. If I’d had more space, I would have (should have) mentioned Rattle alongside AGNI and Iowa Review in the article’s closing, as a prestigious print venue with an online dimension. So it goes.

But I hope the omission isn’t taken as a signal that I don’t respect and read the magazine.

Thanks for all you do for poetry–

Cheers,
Sandra Beasley

Washington, DC

A word in for online publications: they’re much more likely to accept email submissions than all-print ones. There are many problems with only accepting postal submissions, but for me, the biggest is that I’m an “international submitter” and there are no IRCs where I come from (I hunted). I lose out on a lot of rejections because of it…

What I really don’t get is magazines that claim to be international in their outlook but don’t accept email, not even from us international folk. That just screams to me, “We don’t want you!” Even if it’s unintentional.

I’ll always be submitting to online mags (but not just for the reason mentioned above).