Why I'm So Glad My Manuscript Didn't Win This Poetry Prize
Plus, Join us for "Find the Narrative Arc in Your Book" This Sunday
Nobody likes rejection but…
Yeah. I know. Nobody likes getting rejected, either in love or in poetry. Yet, it’s a big part of living. You send your poems out and get some “no’s.” You go out on dates and find people who don’t quite click. Initially getting rejected can be disappointing, but in the end, I think we get rejected for a reason - usually that what we’re looking for isn’t right for us, or isn’t right for us right now.
About 7 years ago I was working on my first full manuscript. I think the title at the time was “Cartography Lesson.” It was the collection of all of the best poems I had written at the time. And I’m an eclectic writer with eclectic interest so the poems had wide ranges of styles and subject matter. There were poems about my parents next to poems about swans, and poems about swans next to poems about sex. What held the collection together was basically that all the poems were the best pieces I had at the time. That’s all.
At one point I got word that the book was a finalist for a prize from Moon City Press. You’d think I would be excited about that, but as soon as I saw it listed, I actually had a very surprising reaction. My stomach clenched and I heard a voice say, “Oh my god, I hope I don’t win!”
Why did I not want to win the prize?
Fortunately, I didn’t win. The poet Jeannine Hall Gailey won for her book Field Guide to the End of the World. And I was relieved.
I’m serious here. I’m not just having sour grapes about the fact that I didn’t win. I really, sincerely hoped that I wouldn’t. Because, even though I believed in the individual poems in the book, I did not believe in the book as a whole. What was I thinking, having those sex poems in the same book as the poems about my parents???
Ew.
I had put that book together not because it was ready, but because I was impatient and wanted a book out. Over the next few years I took the book apart. I divided the poems into different categories, poems about my family, poems about nature, poems about being young in the city, poems about romance and sex.
Turns out I didn’t have one book. I had the start of 3 different books.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think a collection needs to hit on the same note or theme over and over again. I have a number of favorite collections where the poems cover different topics and have different voices. But I also love books that really feel they belong together. My favorites at the time were Bruce Snider’s Paradise Indiana, and Patricia Smith’s Blood Dazzler. the truth is, I wanted to see if I could write a book that focused more closely on a theme. A book that felt, maybe a little, like a novel in verse, or, at least a collection that explored a specific voice.
The tool I really needed
Around this time I also started looking at story structure - you know, things like The Hero’s Journey, and the lesser-known Virgin’s Promise. I also started looking at other collections that focused on a specific theme, books like my friend Kelly Grace Thomas’ Boat Burned (Yes, Yes Books) which plays with the motif of boats as a metaphor for women and their bodies, and Douglas Manuel’s Testify, (Red Hen Press) which he describes as a coming of age story in verse.
After I started putting the poems into categories around a theme, and looking at the way the poems were structured - the “story” they were telling, something else interesting happened. I felt like the book started taking on a power of its own, something greater than just the sum of its parts. I decided to focus for a while on writing poems about nature, really focusing my attention on the topic of our connection with the natural world, themes of spirituality, animism, astronomy, the first impulse to build cities, and the desire to leave the outside and go indoors.
As I focused in on what I had already written, I also noticed the “holes” in the book, the things I hadn’t said or explored. I wrote a lot of poems that praised the natural world, but did I have any poems about the downsides of living outdoors with animals?
Fortunately at this point I also went outside to do some morning yoga, and a bunch of fire ants were kind enough to come start biting my hands while I was in downward dog. This gave me the inspiration I needed to explore what I DON’T like about living so close to nature. This actually gave me a huge new perspective on what I needed from my “indoor” life. Here’s the poem that I wrote as the volta or turning point to my book.
Leather, Published in Blue Lake Review
Within a year of really giving myself over to this project, I had a new version of the manuscript, which I sent to Glass Lyre. It didn’t win, but it was listed as a finalist! Within another year it got accepted by Pine Row Press.
More important than getting published…
More important than the fact that it found a publisher was the fact that along the way, I had what my cousin Jon likes to call, “A bitch of a good time.”
Now I’m engaged in working on the other books, the ones that I put aside while I was working on When the Moon Had Antlers. It’s not exactly a quick process. But, as I engage more, I do feel the momentum building. Sometimes I’m disappointed that the book isn’t done and hasn’t been taken, but other times I see some huge gap in the writing and I think “Oh, Thank God, I get more time to work on this more and make it stronger.”
Of course, the main thing that helps is that I have a support system at The Poetry Salon, a group of people who read, offer feedback and cheer me on as I go. I see their work evolving and I show them my work evolving, and every day it feels like we make progress or have some breakthrough or do something that makes the poetry stronger.
While all of this certainly tests my patience, it also makes me appreciate the process and the potential for my own growth - personal and artistic. I see some of the holes in my own thinking, the patterns I keep repeating, the things I have and have not been able to say.
I know that we all have heard the phrases like “don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good” and there’s no way for a book to ever really be finished, but at the same time, A book, I hope, lasts a long time. Once it’s published, you don’t get to go back and add more to it (unless you self-publish). I also think of books as eliptical machines for us, their creators. Working them we become stronger and stronger. When you publish one you stop getting to work it. So, it’s important to take time with it, to make sure it is as strong as you can make it, but also to let the process make you stronger as a writer as well.
All of that takes time, and it can get lonely. Like with most things in life, it’s best to do it with folks who support you and will be there to offer perspective, encouragement and new ideas to help you grow. Incidentally, I also reached out to Jeannine Hall Gailey after reading her book, and she and I have become friends. Through her I also met poets like Kelli Russell Agadon and Susan Rich, who have both been on The Poetry Saloncast and have introduced me to their book Demystifying the Manuscript, which has offered me more insight into the process of writing/revising/completing a collection and also shown me that I am not alone in my struggle to complete a book. That feeling of not being alone has also meant the world to me, since the whole reason we write a book in the first place is to share our experiences.
Which of course leads me to the main point of this substack… an announcement! If you want to work on your manuscript and not feel alone in the process, we now offer two ways for you to get the support you need.
Two Offerings to Help You Build Your Manuscript
