Writing Problems: "Is My Manuscript Good Enough?"

Rhys, Ginzburg, Kunitz, Lauterbach, Rich, Rilke, Celan, Oppen

This week’s column is about the mysterioso vibe people who are working on manuscripts experience about trying to deal with getting published. “How does it work? How do I break through? What is going on? My poems aren’t bad, so why aren’t they getting taken? Why is publishing poetry so opaque?”

In my editorial services work I frequently work with people who want to submit their manuscripts to a contest, open reading period, or to literary magazines. Often people in this situation feel publishing their poetry is like dealing with a sphinx: that there are unreadable, inscrutable, or perhaps capricious barriers to entry. Perhaps the system is corrupt, is seeking a profit, that you have to know someone, or that someone has to know you. Or perhaps the people at the other end can’t tell good from bad?