“I have written this in so many forms until it was finally forgotten since it always felt unfinished, and I’m concerned I tried to cover too many events and form in the same poem. But I like it.”

“I’m exploring the relationship between the voice in our head that follows us and protects us and who we are in everyday life. It’s clear to me but I never was sure it translated to the page. Hence, under the bed this poem remains.”

“I trashed these pieces because I don't buy the confidence in the speaker's voice. It feels to me that the speaker is putting on a front, is trying to be a poet. I wish he could say what he feels without being so self aware and without asking for the unspoken permission of readers, haters, eyes, etc....”

“I had tried submitting it to a couple places some time ago, but that didn’t pan out. As I kept revisiting it, I began to feel nervous at how personal it is. How if it were published, the person this poem involves would read it. Now, because of those feelings and because someone else out there might read it and connect with it, I want to pull it from the trash and give it a home.”

“The reason why there has been so much great poetry down the centuries is because for our forefathers, just about everything in nature was totally awesome because they couldn’t explain it. You can ‘Google’ just about anything now. Science has an explanation for everything. Maybe nobody wanted this poem because the message it conveys only reinforces the pointlessness of writing it in the first place? Eight rejections and counting.”

“Nocking is the art of stringing a bow. None of Penelope’s suitors could string Odysseus’ bow. Only Odysseus could do that. But it didn’t stop them trying. Maybe this one got rejected because I keep telling people I’m not going to give up sending them stuff. I’m going to keep on trying till I get it right. Then maybe I’ll get to kill off my rivals and show them who’s the daddy. Meanwhile I’ve tried to string that bow nine times, and failed.”

“It made me sad, thinking about passing things on and over. Accidentally making IKEA meatballs taste of existentialism at the age of 19 was not part of my plan! It also felt like it was a bit off balance in terms of what I wanted to portray?”

“I submitted this piece to a magazine and it got rejected with the quickest response I have ever seen from a lit mag. This was expected but not fully; this piece practically wrote itself, and it did so eloquently, so I expected it to fare better than some other submissions I've made. It came about when I was writing a Christmas card to my sister, and I realized I had nothing but sad things to say. All I could think of was, "sorry for not spending time with you," and the like. I had already done my skincare that night, so I couldn't cry with my face straight up; I had to look down so that the tears fell instead on my Santa PJ pants. Thus, an idea was born. Through an extended metaphor with my personal acne battle, I wanted to reflect how emotions can bottle up and, if neglected, produce a psycho.”

“I hid these poems away because they are not metaphors. They are so raw and real that it unnerves me. I am usually more cryptic in my writing, so telling the truth scares me.”

“I do not consider myself a poet; I’ve never been one for flowery language or expelling human emotion as clearly and cleverly as poets do. But sometimes my emotions are swirling so much that my version of poetry is the only way to expel it. I included this poem as part of my graduation slideshow on my Instagram because I wanted it out in the world but didn’t think it was good enough. I still don’t know if it is, of course, but I think we should all have the chance to celebrate the big victories. This was how I celebrated mine.”

“I send these three poems because I have sent them out a lot and they have been rejected and I am discouraged because I think they are good ones and, as you will see from my Bio, my poems have been fairly well received since I started writing poetry upon retirement five years ago. Perhaps it is their controversial subject matter, though that would not be true of the Scrooge poem. At any event, these are the poems of mine that I think best fall into your category.”