Well, one more orphic utterance, but then I'm moving on, & I may move on to cut some lines, shuffle, & submit revised version to the Dorset Prize
Here is what my "personalized" paragraph said:
"Okay, enough about my work, let's get to yours. [Your title here] is quite a strong collection, filled with many wholly original poems that are inventive and, in many ways, beautifully realized. The manuscript as a whole is thoughtful, smart, and often, absorbing. Your voice is wise and captivating, and many of the poems show you to be an accomplished and intriguing poet. There are lots of wonderful poems here. That said, I feel that you can be more rigorous with you language, find more music in it, and that you might avoid closing down your poems--even the short ones, with orphic utterances. I understand that you're making conscious choices, but for my taste, some of the poems do not live up to the exceptional promise announced in your best work. I suggest that you think poem-by-poem about what you need, what you don't, and how to present it so that the language works for you. Re-enter those places where you're doing your best work."
It does ring of generic well-intentioned BS, doesn't it? That's why I compared letters with Evan and Ted.
Now I'm really moving on. Maybe I'll find an editor of a more Eurydicean nature somewhere down the line for this ms.
Hey, whoa, I just realized: BS and ms rhyme.
"Okay, enough about my work, let's get to yours. [Your title here] is quite a strong collection, filled with many wholly original poems that are inventive and, in many ways, beautifully realized. The manuscript as a whole is thoughtful, smart, and often, absorbing. Your voice is wise and captivating, and many of the poems show you to be an accomplished and intriguing poet. There are lots of wonderful poems here. That said, I feel that you can be more rigorous with you language, find more music in it, and that you might avoid closing down your poems--even the short ones, with orphic utterances. I understand that you're making conscious choices, but for my taste, some of the poems do not live up to the exceptional promise announced in your best work. I suggest that you think poem-by-poem about what you need, what you don't, and how to present it so that the language works for you. Re-enter those places where you're doing your best work."
It does ring of generic well-intentioned BS, doesn't it? That's why I compared letters with Evan and Ted.
Now I'm really moving on. Maybe I'll find an editor of a more Eurydicean nature somewhere down the line for this ms.
Hey, whoa, I just realized: BS and ms rhyme.
posted by Anonymous at 8:23 PM
3 Comments:
My Tupelo letter was similar, just a few differences. It was definitely formulaic. I'll type it up when I find it at home.
Apparently, there are now 25 Tupelo finalists mentioned on foetry.com. First, I thought it wasn't a contest -- just an open reading. I'm also not sure how I wasn't a finalist -- I'm damn good, man.
Okay, enough about my work is frightening that I will leave my desk evenings in a cold sweat that smells not of lavender but of a bluish citrus, while your work collects its shivers but puts them in wholly original drawers, which are locked each by a separate key, none of which seem to have been included with the manuscript beautifully realized though the adjoining coinboxes are. The manuscript in parts is thoughtful, smart, and often absorbing spilled coffee, which, for my money, makes it especially smart but, oddly, unintriguing. Your voice is wise for acre upon acre and the gerbils which overran it shat primarily on wonder. That said, I feel that you can be more rigorous in your mortis considering that the music in it avoids closing down its upper jaw even when there is an obvious fleck of spinach stuck to a bicuspid. Among orphic utterances, I understand, you are making choices, but for my taste, your choices aren't exactly bleu cheese. Some of the poems do not live up to the exceptional doorprize I got at last night's spaghetti feed. I suggest that you buy products containing only trace amounts of corn syrup.
Brilliant, Glenn!
Don, yeah, maybe we should charge each other $35 and publish each other.
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