3 for 16

Hi Jake,

Thank you for your submission. VISIONS has chosen your poem “The Shakes” to be included in the current issue.

Please feel free to submit more poetry in the future.

Thanks again.

Curtis Harrell, MFA
Coordinator, Academic Skills--Reading and Writing
NorthWest Arkansas Community College
One College Drive
Bentonville, AR 72712
Phone: (479) 6...
Email: charrell@nwacc.edu

2 for 15

Dear Jake Kilroy:

Thank you for sending "Ampathy I, The Steps Between The Circus And The River, In The Frail Collapse Of Man." Your work received careful consideration here.

We've decided this manuscript isn't right for us, but we wish you luck placing it elsewhere.

Kind regards,

The Editors

P.S. Without submissions like yours, we'd lose the sense of discovery that keeps AGNI fresh. Please click here for a discounted subscription rate offered as a thank-you to our submitters: https://www.bu.edu/agni/subscribe-08sem08.html.

________________________________

AGNI Magazine
Sven Birkerts, Editor
William Pierce, Senior Editor

2 for 14

Dear Jake,

Thank you for the notification and many thanks for your submission to Tea Party Magazine’s Issue 18. I have read your poems with interest but am not able to include them in the forthcoming edition.

Please feel free to submit work in the future. Tea Party Magazine will announce the call for submissions to Issue 19 in June/July.

Best regards,
Sean Labrador y Manzano

Poetry Editor
Tea Party Magazine

Fiction: 1 for 1

Dear Jake,

I got such a big kick out of this, I'm giving it Express Service...
http://sixsentences.blogspot.com/2009/03/oh-so-youre-quick-one.html

Welcome to 6S!

Best,
Robert McEvily
Editor, 6S

Thank you for your help, Borders...

Last night, I sat in Border's for an hour reading the 2009 Writer's Market For Novels & Short Stories.

And by "reading," I mean that I sat there with a pen and post-it notes, and wrote down all the websites of the publications that pay money for fiction before then putting the book back on the shelf and leaving.

Sent A Story To The New Yorker

Yesterday, I submitted a short story called "Dear Sylvia Plath" to The New Yorker, sans the phrase "print this, you motherfucks."

I'm going to wait for them to pass on it and then send it elsewhere.

We'll see how it goes.

Six Sentences

An interesting place for flash fiction that I'm certain almost everyone can do.

www.sixsentences.blogspot.com

So Far (From Batch One)

Bold: Yes
Italics: No

- Anderbo
- The Battered Suitcase
- Blackbird
- Black Boot
- Boxcar Poetry
- Brink Lit
- Burnside Review
- Caketrain Journal
- CELLA
- Common Review
- The Copper Nickel
- Debris Magazine
- Decomp Magazine
- Diode
- Counterexample Poetics
- Dossier
- Emprise Review
- FictionWeek Literary Review
- Folly
- Ginosko
- Greatcoat
- Guernica
- Holly Rose Review
- Keyhole
- Knockout
- Lines & Stars
- Merge
- Newport Review
- Oak Bend Review
- Pax Journal
- Post Road
- Puffin Circus
- Pure Francis
- Sidebrow
- Slice
- Smartish Pace
- SNReview
- Steam Ticket Journal
- Sub-Lit
- Tea Party Magazine
- Valparaiso Poetry Review
- Visions
- WAZEE
- Whiskey & Fox
- White Whale Review

2 for 13

Dear Jake,


Thank you for submitting to Redivider. We enjoyed reading your work. Unfortunately, we do not have a place for it in our next issue. We wish you the best of luck in placing it elsewhere.


Sincerely,
Redivider Staff
--
Redivider: A Journal of New Literature and Art
http://www.redividerjournal.org/

2 for 12

Dear Jake Kilroy,

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to become acquainted with your work. We have given it close consideration and find that it does not suit our present needs. We sincerely regret that the great volume of submissions we receive makes it impossible for us to provide you with a more personal response. We wish you success in placing your work elsewhere and invite you to submit other material to us via our online submission system at bostonreview.net/submissions. Thank you for thinking of Boston Review.

Sincerely,

The Editors of Boston Review

2 for 11

Hi Jake:

We're glad to accept "Medieval (Me Devil)" for publication in the May 2009 issue of decomP. Congratulations! Do you have a bio you'd like to include? If so, please send it along.

Best,
Jason Jordan
Editor-in-Chief

--
www.decompmagazine.com

Gonna Try For Fiction Too

I suppose it was silly to just pursue publishing poetry, as I write quite a bit of fiction too. That's half of what Fake Book Covers is anyway.

So, it won't just be what I've learned about trying to get poetry published, since I'm sending out fiction here and there.

Like I said before, "In the blog, I'll show what I do and how I do it, and we'll see if it's right or wrong. There will be notes of where I've failed and where I've succeeded. I'll write down everything I've learned in the process. We'll see what works and what doesn't. And I'll publish rejection or acceptance letters. I hope that anyone who would also like to be published to participate and contribute any fair ideas."

Now it's not just attempts to get poetry published, but anything freelance.

Let's see how it goes.

1 for 10

Dear Jake,

Thank you for submitting to diode. We very much appreciate the opportunity to read your work. We read your poems with interest, however we decided that they do not meet our current needs.

We wish you the best and thank you again for your interest in diode.

Sincerely,

Patty Paine
Editor
diode

1 for 9

Dear Jake,

Thank you for submitting your work to Boxcar Poetry Review. We have read your submission with interest, but have decided not to publish these particular poems. We appreciate your efforts and wish you all the best in your writing and publishing endeavors.

Warmest regards,
Neil Aitken, Editor
Boxcar Poetry Review

1 for 8

Dear Jake,

Thanks for sending us a submission and giving us a try. We decided to pass on this one, as it wasn't right for us. Nevertheless, we wish you luck placing it elsewhere.

Thanks and take care,

Brett

--
editor
Knockout's blog: www.knockoutlit.org/blog.html
Knockout's website: www.knockoutlit.org
get some Knockout gear here:
www.cafepress.com/knockoutpoetry

Don't Need Word Counts

I think I'm going to include word counts anyway, as some magazines may consider space, but anyway...

Dear Jake,

OK, thanks. We've received them. Don't worry next time about word counts; most literary magazines generally don't need them.

Thanks!

Brett

--
editor
Knockout's blog: www.knockoutlit.org/blog.html
Knockout's website: www.knockoutlit.org
get some Knockout gear here:
www.cafepress.com/knockoutpoetry

1 for 7

Dear Jake,

Although we thank you for submitting your work to Pure Francis, we are not accepting it for publication at this time.

We wish you much success in finding a placement.

Sincerely,
Elizabeth
www.purefrancis.org

1 for 6

Jake,

I was unbable to place these at this times but enjoyed the read. Thank you for thinking of Oak Bend Review.

~Sandee

1 for 5

Mr. Kilroy,

Thank you for sending your poetry to us for consideration. Our editors have looked it over carefully, but don't feel we can find a suitable place for it in the planned upcoming issues.

Thanks for sharing your work and allowing us the opportunity. We would very much like you to keep us in mind for future consideration.

Fawn Neun
Editor
The Battered Suitcase


Vagabondage Press LLC
New Directions in Art & Literature

Batch Two

SENT: March 17-18
HOW: E-mail and online only
MAGAZINES OR ONLINE: Magazines, I think
LOCATED: United States
PAY: None
FOUND: 2009 Poet's Market
SIMULTANEOUS SUBMISSIONS: Yes
PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED POEMS: No

POEMS:
- "The Vices Of Youth"
- "Took Two"
- "Orange Rose"
- "Tricky"
- "Churchfire"

MAGAZINES:
- Columbia: A Journal of Literature And Art
- Flint Hills Review
- Geronimo Review
- Lullwater Review
- The MacGuffin
- Nibble
- Plain Spoke
- Potomac Review
- Redivider
- Sierra Nevada College Review
- Studio One
- Whiskey Island Magazine

The Shakes

From Two Hands himself:
----------------------------------------------------------------
Dictated by Two Hands to lowly web intern:

"Hi Jake, my name is Two Hands, poet extraordinaire. I received this name because of my ability to write two different poems simultaneously with each of my two hands. My real name has been lost in the burned pages of the prose I used to write professionally many years ago.

As a reader of your blog, and as an optimist watching your hunt to land that perfect poem in that perfect magazine, I was wondering if it might be possible to read some of the poems that are being submitted? Probably the rejected ones as I'm sure you wouldn't want to publish something on here that will one day be read by the masses holding and caressing your work in their gentle, tiny hands."

End of dictation.
----------------------------------------------------------------
So here's the longest poem I've sent out, which I suppose means has the least likely chance of being published. It's called "The Shakes" and it's 1,226 words, which I'm learning to be too long by about an average of 800-1,000 words. It's about four or five pages in a word document. Again, way too long for most magazines. Online is different. But as for print magazines, a bad call on my part.

Anyway, I wrote this once when I lost my shit. I didn't edit it at all because I wrote it shaking and wanted to keep it shaky. If I changed one thing, it'd lead to more changes and then it'd read too calm. It'd be too structured and it'd lose the title's meaning. So I left it exactly how I wrote it. And I wrote as fast I could.

I repeat a lot of words, like "dusty" and variations of "rattle," but that's how I thought of everything in those minutes. Repeating words bothers me, unless I'm trying to keep a subtle rhythm. I used the phrase "charred remains" as a subtle rhythm in another poem called "Brilliantly Ruined Brilliant Ruins," as one poem inspired another. Kept the connection there. I wanted this poem, however, to read like a frantic mess of speech. Maybe I got that, maybe I didn't. But I didn't edit anything, as everything's more honest and childish before you go back with an ego. You're running on the most basic emotions in a first draft.

The second half is much better than the first half, I feel. The whole poem becomes about something else entirely almost, but with the same frustration I wrote in the first half. There's more heroic defeat in the second half, which is a better way to end than cowardly defeat, which the first few paragraphs have.

Also, I did actually delete five paragraphs out of frustration before going outside to have a cigarette. I was also writing a poem about Charles Bukowski earlier in the week at the time, so maybe there's some influence there too.

Anyway.

"The Shakes"
by Jake Kilroy

The shakes came from the stereo,
dusty in the wall,
myself in place like a dirty rug.
Tie the room together, tie the lovebirds together.
Watch me, get a picture, let the nerves lessen,
shake, rattle and roll.
Isn't that how we played it the last time I saw you in a blue dress?

Goddamn these old pictures, the dusty bins of lovers,
the rattling of flat skeletons trying to claw their way out;
oh, how the hair stands up when I think of you,
how I ultimately want to take a hammer to the walls,
get the perfume off, get the scent out, it'd give me a new art.

And just for the record,
I never wrote you back because I thought the paper was cursed.

Instead, I...well...you'll never know, I guess...

The shakes...oh, you can see the black lines in the thinner air,
a plague of demons marching towards your kitchen,
just looking to drink all the milk you left out.
Just let 'em come, just let 'em drum,
just let 'em drink.
What else does it take to be a great writer?

Show 'em what you got, and they'll clap their bony fingers together,
leaving the air to be a faint stale taste of modern ruins.
The shelves aren't long enough to keep your boxes,
so I left them out in the rain and watched them collapse,
while I smoked what I thought was a pack by the stove.
I thought the rain would surely flood the garage.

And I waited.
And I waited.
And I waited.
And I waited.
And I waited.

I scratched my arms for so long that it look like I had burned 'em,
a prairie wind couldn't have carried me home.
So I let 'em burn for everything that didn't.

Why not?

Burn it, baby, you better burn it, so you can sleep;
so I can sleep; so we can sleep;
burn it on the beach by your parents' house when you come home,
let it go to waste when you spend a winter's week here,
left without refuge, no call, as you'd rather sit in the dark,
than let me see you and bring up the charred remains of us.

"Like a gunshot," I'd say.

"Like hell," you'd say.

And then we'd kiss.

And then it'd fade to ivy, crawling up our skin,
like we were the statues on an east coast campus,
cracking and letting the sunlight do good damage.

The shakes get in me, when those dusty songs play;
god, leave me brutal, buried in a stash of postcards,
rattling the walls, kicking off the dusty scent of charred remains;
the sour taste of my own fingers won't do, rattling inside my mouth,
scared of the medicine it takes to rightfully rid myself of the shakes,
wrongfully, doubtfully, a new miracle sparking the sky darker,
you know I won't stop until I'm riding every cliché on wheels,
straight to your door, straight to everything that I want to knock,
let it go, let it go, let it go, settle, settle, settle,
let that dust burn in the next fire I set to already twice charred remains.
This former flame is growing.
Oh God, pretty soon, the post office will be on fire.

I have to stop, I have to stop, I have to go.

[five paragraphs missing]

I botched half of this poem because I lost my nerve,
because I can't ever finish what I start.

I had a cigarette.

I smoked it so quick I thought I ate it.

I coughed up what felt like my small intestine.

I rid myself of health.

I forever pray to false idols.

I won't ever sit in a church without shaking.

I tossed the cigarette in the gutter.

I heard the buzz I had been searching for,
as the cigarette sunk to the bottom of the dirty water.

I tried to count the stars but got dizzy. I came back inside.

I sat through another lightning storm that wasn't here yet.

I came back to finish what I had started,
wishing I had never gotten rid of anything.

I wish I was a better packrat.

I wish I meant more to my paper.
I wish this paper could achieve more.
I wish I could leave blank pages out in the rain,
and just wait for nature to be a real poet.

And instead of any new year's resolutions,
I just start every new year with a cocktail.

Chase tail, drive fast and don't listen to anyone.

Not a single philosopher.

Not a single wise man.

Not a single nomad.

Why?

Because they don't drink, they don't smoke, they don't lie, they don't steal,
they don't travel by their pockets, they don't chase tail,
they don't drive fast and they want to hear what the world has to say.

Well, that's not a religion I'm going to buy. I can promise you that.
I'll build a well and pour down all the milk the demons drank
before I let you convince me that I could use the well for wishing.

All coins have ever done is buy me more reasons to chase tail,
drive fast and not listen to anyone.
And drink. And smoke. And lie. And steal.

And travel by my pockets.

Not wishing. God help me, not wishing.

Wishing is for boys, regret is for men.

Am I right?

It's not the guns, it's not the gambling, it's not the gin.

It's regret. That's a man's best game, isn't it?

Christ Almighty, why not die for our regrets?

The more, the merrier. The lore, the lighter.

But not for me anymore. I've got a poem to finish, you see.

I can't fly through your town anymore.

I have to pull over, I have to dig my feet into the grass of that hill,
overlooking the beach, overlooking the sunken ocean,
a well for wishing if I ever saw one;
last time I was there, a drunk driver almost hit me,
but I was listening more to ocean's waves, maybe my own traffic,
louder than the shakes of the road, I suppose.

God help me.

God help the shakes.

Give me more than prayer.
Give me more than bread.
Give me more than wine.

God never gets the shakes, I hear.
At least that's what the girls told me in school.
He doesn't even pray to a higher power.
And if he's not praying, why the hell should I?

What does Heaven have that Earth doesn't?

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry;
it always comes back to this plague;
a plague of whims, a plague of words, a plague of well-wishers.

You were on my side when this poem started,
but like any good verse, I've charred enough of the battlegrounds (again)
to forget the war.

Let me just say this:
I will forever be sorry,
I will forever be a mess,
I will forever wish you were here,
I will forever wish that years haven't passed
I will forever fear old age,
I will forever fear the quiet moments,
I will forever create destruction,
I will forever create,
I will forever tell you what you already know.

And the real reason I never listened to the philosophers,
the wise men or the nomads was because none of 'em ever got the shakes.

And that's the truth.

1 for 4

Jake,

Thank you for submitting to Holly Rose Review. After reviewing and evaluating your work, we regret that it does not meet our needs at the present time.

We appreciate your interest in this journal and for giving us the opportunity to consider your submission.

Thanks very much.


Theresa Edwards
Editor/Publisher
Holly Rose Review
www.hollyrosereview.com

No Long Poems

I don't think many of my poems from Batch One will be accepted. Most of the poems are several pages long and around 1,000 words. Poetry magazines don't print that and the letter from Puffin Circus reminded me how silly I was to send out poems that long to journals that are fairly small.

I should only send the longer poems (though my favorite) to magazines that actually welcome lengthy ones. Otherwise, it's just a waste of time. Many have limits and many don't publish them in guidelines. The magazines just figure people won't send poems 1,000 words long, as many people can't write more than 100. You're much better off sending shorter poems.

Ah well. Bring on the rejection letters.

1 for 3

Dear Jake Kilroy,

Thank you for your submissions. Unfortunately, they don't suit our needs at this time. I am not one to send off form rejections though (not yet anyway), so I will give you a little insight into why?

Poem 1 just didn't quite suit my taste that's all. The rest of them, while I liked parts of them, were either too long for our needs (we like poetry to be in the ballpark of 40 lines, but we will give some leeway if I think the poem is exceptional) or used too much profanity.

Because of my desire to make this magazine accessible to as many people as possible, and my personal and literary convictions, I don't publish profanity. I don't mind edgy, off-center, or even weird. I might allow the occasional hell or damn if the piece can't survive without it (and most times a piece can live with out it).

I hope my explanation helps. Keep writing and submitting. Thanks again.

Anthony Kendrick
Puffin Circus

1 for 2

Jake,

Thank you for submitting to Holly Rose Review. After reviewing and evaluating your work, we regret that it does not meet our needs at the present time.

We appreciate your interest in this journal and for giving us the opportunity to consider your submission.

Thanks very much.

Theresa Edwards
Editor/Publisher
Holly Rose Review
www.hollyrosereview.com

When you withdraw a poem, don't expect a reply...

When you withdraw a poem, don't expect a reply. They aren't mad and there's no real reason to send a reply. However, when you do get a reply, they're totally cute.

Here's the only one I received:

Jake,

Thanks for letting us know, and congratulations on the acceptance!

Best,

Amanda and Joseph

Amanda Raczkowski & Joseph Reed
Caketrain Journal and Press
Box 82588, Pittsburgh, PA 15218
www.caketrain.org

Ok, I had a poem accepted, now I have to tell other magazines that somebody likes me...

Now that I've had a poem accepted to the magazine Counterexample Poetics, I have to send a notification to every other magazine that I also sent it to, as they must withdraw it from consideration. Or they'll be pissed. Can't have that.

Here's what I'm sending...

Dear MAGAZINE,

I must withdraw my poem "The Last Theater / An Old Friend" from your consideration. I sent it just a few days ago. It has since been picked up by another magazine publishing in summer. I wanted to abide by your notify immediately policy.

However, my other poems have not been declared by another publication and are available for your publishing consideration.

Thank you.

Cheers,
Jake Kilroy

1 for 1

Jake,

Thank you for thinking of Counterexample Poetics. I would like to publish “The Last Theater / An Old Friend”, which will take place some time in June/July (if not sooner). I will send an e mail at this time. Again, thank you.

Best regards,

Felino Soriano, editor, Counterexample Poetics

"Interpretations are imperative."

No Simultaneous Submissions Means You're A Dick (Or More Powerful Than The Death Star)

"To have great poets there must be great audiences too." ~Walt Whitman

After sending out poems rapid-fire last week, I came to learn something about what literary magazines think of themselves. The most arrogance consideration a publication seems to have is "no simultaneous submissions."

"Simultaneous submission" means that you're sending the same poem out to other magazines at the same time. You're sending out several poems to several magazines, you're saying. Most magazines say, "We consider simultaneous submissions, as long as we are aware they are simultaneous and are notified immediately if accepted elsewhere."

And most big magazines that include poetry (The New Yorker, The Atlantic, etc) won't take simultaneous submissions. That's fine. It makes total sense that big-time poetry magazines don't accept simultaneous submissions. They have the power to be choosers without ever even having to thinking about any remote form of begging.

I mean, they don't need anybody. The New Yorker is the most asexual magazine I've ever read. Mostly because it's the only magazine I can imagine reproducing by itself. How stoked would The New Yorker be if it could have sex with itself?

Shit, how many times have you read their cartoons and just thought, "Who loves these cartoons more than the staff?" Ugh. Fuck you, New Yorker.

*sigh*

God, I want to be in The New Yorker so badly. Just to make in there with all these professors and stuffy tweed monsters that would think I was an idiot otherwise.

Maybe that's what this whole blog really is. It's just one big diary about how I plan to sneak my way into The New Yorker.

But some of these smaller publications have similar rules to The New Yorker. Less than 1,000 in subscribers and they still say, "Run a poem by us, see if we like it and then if we say no, send it other places." That's ridiculous, considering most of these magazines don't respond for at least three months and don't pay. These smaller prints that believe in smaller poetry want smaller poets to only contact four magazines for the entire year.

Wow, the underground keeps you underground. Awesome. Jerks.

I suppose I mention this because I remember one online magazine having an entire paragraph, saying (paraphrased), "Of course we accept simultaneous submissions. It's ridiculous to think that writers should give small publications a first read. It limits the writer. We think that any editor forbidding simultaneous submissions was never a writer to begin with."

Good point, small magazine whose name I have forgotten. You were right on the money without having any.

So if Whitman's right, and we need a great audience to have great writers, why did the audience start bad policies to suffocate the writer? Goddamn, they're making up rules on the runway when the plane's trying to take off.

Dickbags.

Batch One

SENT: March 10-12
CONTACT: E-mail and online subs only
MAGAZINE OR ONLINE: Magazines, I think
LOCATION: United States
PAY: None
FOUND: http://www.pw.org/literary_magazines?page=1&apage=*
SIMULTANEOUS SUBMISSIONS: Yes
PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED POEMS: No

Last week, I submitted 3-6 poems (depending how many were allowed for each publication) online. I submitted various combinations of the following poems:

- "Bury Me Under The Scarecrow"
- "The Last Theater / An Old Friend"
- "Whiskey, Whiskey, Whiskey..."
- "All The Martyr Sons"
- "Medieval (Me Devil)"
- "The Shakes"

I found a website (which I can't find the link to now) that listed 60 pages of poetry magazines, both online, print or both. All accepted online submissions. Most had less than 1,000 for their circulation/subscriber count. I submitted my poems to the following publications:

- Anderbo
- The Battered Suitcase
- Blackbird
- Black Boot
- Boxcar Poetry
- Brink Lit
- Burnside Review
- Caketrain Journal
- CELLA
- Common Review
- The Copper Nickel
- Debris Magazine
- Decomp Magazine
- Diode
- Counterexample Poetics
- Dossier
- Emprise Review
- FictionWeek Literary Review
- Folly
- Ginosko
- Greatcoat
- Guernica
- Holly Rose Review
- Keyhole
- Knockout
- Lines & Stars
- Merge
- Newport Review
- Oak Bend Review
- Pax Journal
- Post Road
- Puffin Circus
- Pure Francis
- Sidebrow
- Slice
- Smartish Pace
- SNReview
- Steam Ticket Journal
- Sub-Lit
- Tea Party Magazine
- Valparaiso Poetry Review
- Visions
- WAZEE
- Whiskey & Fox
- White Whale Review

Act One

I've been writing poetry since I first read a poem. The earliest account I have of my involvement in poetry is writing a poem on my family's first Mac that didn't have a printer or the internet. It was black and white and you could carry the computer with one hand. I think I was only halfway through elementary school when I wrote a poem for my mother's birthday called "My Mother Is Still Pretty Young."

There was only rhyme and no reason to the poem. The lines in each verse had nothing to do with the last line, which was also the title of the poem. But I remember thinking how much fun I had writing it.

Now, a good set of years later, I'm still writing poems. And hopefully, they're more complex these days.

But the poems just sit and gather dust in various stashes in my bedroom, closet, garage, car and desk. There's also a hefty and heavy portion just sitting inside my computer.

Why haven't I ever sent them into poetry magazines?

Well, probably the same reason most poets don't send out their work: they just don't think about it or they put it off.

Sure, many don't have the confidence, but even when they consider their poems frail, they still think about people reading them. They'd like to see how far their work can go, what they can accomplish, what people with working eyes that aren't friends or family think of their creative outlets. Otherwise, the poems just sit there and do nothing.

So I've decided to start sending out poetry. I mean, why not?

And I've decided to keep a blog about it for several reasons:

1) so everyone can see how I went about this and succeeded or failed, so that they may choose a similar or varying path when sending out their own work

2) to keep track of my rejection or acceptance letters

3) to motivate me to keep trying relentlessly

Let's see what comes about.