He’s Just Ken

Not every man, but it’s always a man

Two of my greatest supporters of my writing who believed in me, challenged me, and encouraged me are men. One was my college English teacher Wes, the other is Thorn, editor of A Word with You Press.

That being said, the rudest, most condescending, dismissive rejection letters I have received have ALL been from male editors. I mean every single one.

I’ve been writing for decades and submitting for just as long. 99% of my work is rejected. Most rejection letters are generic but polite. Others offer constructive feedback. Often times, I look at it and think yeah, that poem needed more time to marinate. I’m a messy, manic, and passionate writer. I can be too hasty. An astrologer gave me a reading back in March and repeatedly indicated based on my natal chart that I need to be a writer and teacher, but only in higher ed. A penchant for writing and innovation came up over and over again within multi aspects of my chart. This man knew my first name and my birth details. That’s it. Anyway, he went into further detail saying everything I write or create is fully motivated through strong, intense emotions and imagination. So, it makes sense that more technical writers with much more craft in their pocket might eye-roll my writing. That’s fine.

Anyway, let’s get back to today’s asshole. Again, I’m used to rejection, I even expect due to hundreds of rejections throughout my life. But recently I’ve written some work I feel good about and decided to start sending a few off after a long break. I sent three poems. I am going to share the note along with the poems he’s referring to. But I want to preface it by saying that one, he made zero reference to my third poem, two, he didn’t even have the right title for one of them, and third his comments on the last were asinine and nonsensical.

The first poem’s full title is Moon in Pisces, not just moon. It is a shape/concrete poem which the magazine encouraged. It took forever! But here it is:

I think even without knowing that I live in a literal desert next to Hanford and I feel at home by the sea, at the very least he could read it simply as someone who was born to a place or world they don’t belong in, one that was stolen from them. But for the life of him…

The next one he said he could just as easily be titled Inspiration or Possibility. Now, tell me, how does this obviously bleak poem elicit these sentiments?

The crayon breaking 
mid sketch,
the smell of wax,
an empty room. 

So, he did a lazy reading, missed an entire poem submission completely and was condescending to boot.

I can see where my poems need work. I can see why my work gets rejected. I know there are people in my own career sector that look down upon it. But for the love of Zendaya, how tf are you an editor when you miss so much, like a whole other poem? Reject my writing if you don’t like it or it doesn’t fit, but at least fucking take the time to read it properly.

Once I started submitting work, I took down work from my Substack because most places explicitly state they don’t accept work that’s published on your socials or blogs. Now, I figure, screw it. I might as well just share it on Substack because it’s not likely to get published anyway.

Writing should be for the people, be accessible to all people, not just editors and magazines. Not just English teachers.

All I want is to make connections through writing anyway. Why wait for Kens to “for the life of them” figure it out.

For the entire first year of my MFA program, my male mentor offered zero feedback other than, “I don’t get this.” That’s it. Every. Damn. Time. Well bro, I don’t get why you were a mentor when you offer absolutely nothing to your mentees. Get bent.

So, Substack, here’s to sharing all my rejections with my favorite humans.

Ken can go back to his Mojo Dojo Casa House.

Fin.