Grace Notes @ Snarkattack

Getting two poems published was pretty cool, even if certain people didn’t bother to read them. Ugh. I received another rejection which puzzled me greatly - not because I think they should have accepted my work but because they genuinely confused me.

They said my pieces came reasonably close to being accepted but weren’t exactly what they were looking for. They also said there was no question I could write, which is pretty nice. Wouldn’t it have been better for them to say that the pieces were good but not in line with the style of the magazine they are publishing? Does this mean I shouldn’t try submitting again? Perhaps I’ll keep trying till they tell me to sod off, haha!

I managed to put in a bunch of other submissions this week, online ones. Sadly, the money I was saving which could’ve gone towards one of those awesome printer/fax/scanner thingies is now Christmas money since being sacked from the dole, haha. I’m short on ideas as to where to send poems so I guess that means trying the two places I know of.

I’m super-enjoying Pride and Prejudice (still cannot thank you enough, Rob). I came across a bittersweet passage about poetry that I found worth sharing (sorry to all if the ‘I-wanna-be-a-writer’ stuff is boring):

(dialogue between Elizabeth Bennet and her mother though there are others present)

“…When she was only fifteen, there was a gentleman at my brother Gardiner’s in town, so much in love with her, that my sister-in-law was sure he would make her an offer before we came away. But however he did not. Perhaps he thought her too young. However, he wrote some verses on her, and very pretty they were.”
“And so ended his affection,” said Elizabeth impatiently. “There has been many a one, I fancy, overcome in the same way. I wonder who first discovered the efficacy of poetry in driving away love!”
“I have been used to consider poetry as the food of love*,” said Darcy [f*cking oath yes! says I]
“Of a fine, stout, healthy love it may. Every thing nourishes what is strong already. But if it be only a slight, thin sort of inclination, I am convinced that one good sonnet will starve it entirely away.”

(Austen, P & P (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2004) 44. End of chapter 9, volume 1. Peste de la charogne, I’ve forgotten how to do citations. Groan.

*’…consider poetry as the food of love’ - allusion to a line in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night: ‘If music be the food of love, play on, / Give me excess of it…’ (no, I’m not smart: the only reason I know this quotation is because my father randomly recites it for no apparent reason. I felt awfully smart recognising it in the novel though!)

Personal experience tells me there may be some truth in Elizabeth’s statement.

Today, I got desperate and actually attempted to join a LiveJournal community for people who take the whole wordsmith thing seriously. Am so bummed about not going to the Wollongong workshop next month. At least now, I can’t even afford it.