A Pale Green Glow

Posted on January 6, 2005 in Morals & Ethics Poetry

Towards the end of December, I inquired about some poems I submitted to an anthology in September 2003. My friends were receiving their rejection notices. I thought it curious that I had not heard from the editors given that I regularly attended their poetry readings.

Turned out that my submission had been lost. And this is where I get all whoozy and exploratory, tapping the walls of my skull and putting out the big question, the big E question which pertains to Ethics: I was asked to resubmit the poems. Very kind of the editors to allow this and I am grateful for the chance. They are good people. But as I sat at the keyboard, I realized how much I had developed since September 2003, that the poems I submitted did not represent my best. I could have chosen any five poems out of my repetoire and sent them in, with the editors none the wiser. But I went ahead and sent the same comparitively weak five that I had submitted in September of 2003.

The mind begins to move all over the map. Do I adopt the pose of a hero for sticking with the poems or do I call myself a fool for not seizing the chance to put my best work out there? It’s a lacy pattern, not unlike a map of the arteries and veins that supply and drain the brain. There’s a pale green glow to it. I think I’ll just not think about it.

Don’t tell me that I did the right thing or the wrong thing. That’s just how I did it.