Submission limbo

Well this hasn't happened in a while, so I guess I'm due for a slice of humility: on the recommendation of a good friend, I sent some poems to a newish journal a few months back. I haven't been writing all that much, but I tell myself that's okay because I just had another chapbook published, so (some of) my stuff is "out there" (as opposed to being stuck in my laptop where no one will ever read it).

So it's been a while now, and all last week I kept thinking "gotta check on those poems" and then forgetting again. Just thought of it again tonight. Here's what I found at their website:

"Effective immediately, [XYZ] is on hiatus. We are not sure how long this break will last or if we will have to simply call it a wrap — that remains to be seen."

"As Editor, I appreciate all of the support and encouragement that I encountered along the way.

"Best to all of you on your journey. Writer, may you find the prefect [sic] rhythm in your voice. Reader, may you discover and be changed by these worlds within great stories — worlds we would all surely dream up otherwise."

Okay, so I indulged in a teensy moment of snit by pointing out the editor's typo above. That's all the unkindness you'll get from me.

Except for the following gassy bubble of resentment that climbs my esophagus like Frankenstein clanging up the windmill's spiral staircase to blurt out its monstrous little thought-bile: Would it KILL THEM to notify the writers who've sent work? Who are waiting patiently, dutifully, hopefully? If I hadn't thought to check the website, how much longer would my poems have remained in limbo?

One year, within a span of about six months, my poems went missing at no less than five journals. I was writing like crazy at the time, and had roughly a dozen batches of poems constantly circulating, in a crazed push for validation that I hope I never repeat. I grew so caught up in the unfairness of my work being lost--who are these people who can't keep track of a simple envelope?--that I started enclosing, in addition to the SASE, a stamped postcard that listed the names of the offending journals with a reprimand: "What do V, W, X, Y and Z have in common? They've all misplaced my manuscript within the past six months. Please distinguish yourself from their company." The journal's editor/reader was then asked to both sign and date the card and return it promptly.

Now that I've worked in an editorial capacity for several years--and now that I've misplaced a few manuscripts and written a few apologies--I'm disconcerted--no, appalled--at the egotism of some writers. If your batch of poems is so earth-shatteringly important, if the possibility of human error in their handling is so abhorrent, then why bother sending them to a magazine at all? Why not bypass the slush pile and simply stride right up to the Nobel Committee and demand your fucking prize? And I'm embarrassed to have bought into the same mucked-up thinking that places the writer in some ridiculously imagined position of privilege. If thinking of "my" journal as a living, breathing community of writers--with those who've made it in no more privileged than those who haven't yet--is foolish and passe, then fine, I'm a fool.

Yeah, I wish [XYZ] had let me know that I could send my few poems elsewhere. But jeezustapdancingchrist, it's not the end of the world. I wish the editors well, and thank them for giving the endeavor their best shot.