Editor’s Notes

Greetings Dear Readers,

This month's issue features poems by Mary Lee Bragg, Pearl Pirie and Dominik Parisien, along with a review by rob mclennan of Domenica Martinello's All Day I Dream About Sirens (Coach House Books, 2019). I hope you enjoy the issue.

Occasionally I receive less than polite e-mails from those who've submitted poetry who are surprised their work hasn't been chosen. I have been threatened with lawsuits, cursed to rot in hell and been called a few choice names by such. I never answer the e-mails, but I thought I'd address the issue of rejection here.

For the August issue, 10 members of our selection committee voted on 55 poems and we could afford to published three, this is an acceptance rate of 6%. Our selection committee doesn't see the names or biographies attached to the poems. They assign each poem a score from 0 to 5, with 5 being the highest. The poems with the top three highest average scores were published.

There is no specific aesthetic. Each member of the selection committee is free to score according to their own ideas about what constitutes a strong poem. The selection committee is made up of well-published poets, emerging poets, graduates of English Literature programs, and self-taught poets.

Bywords.ca is grateful to have received funding from the City of Ottawa for 2019 and we have received funding yearly since we began in 2003. We have other smaller sources of funding, such as revenue from sales of chapbooks and private donations, but the bulk of our funding comes from the City. We are a non-profit organization, so we budget carefully and can only afford to publish a limited number of poems a month.

If you receive a rejection for your poems, I recommend that you keep trying and send out the poems to another publication. If you are concerned about the quality of your work, take a workshop or hire an editor. There are some fundamental mistakes beginner poets tend to make, such as writing in clichés, using stock imagery, etc. But there's a lot of possibility beyond that to write strong poetry with sharp diction, vivid imagery, and unique style.

If you want to be a published writer, you're going to face a lot of rejections. And remember that self-publishing is always an option if you would prefer not to deal with such.

I am grateful to all the poets who send us work. I know it's scary. We treat your poems with careful consideration and respect. Please do us the courtesy of treating editors with respect in return.

Thanks to our selection committee this month:

Jesse Aubin
Wes Babcock
Robert Martin Evans
Margo Lapierre
Kemisha Newman
Catina Noble
Jade Riordan
JC Sulzenko
Rob Thomas

If you have comments, suggestions, compliments, critiques or a good chicken marinade to offer, please e-mail me at amanda@bywords.ca

Amanda Earl
Managing Editor

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