“This is the first poem I wrote inspired by my work as a German teacher in a refugee camp. I’ve made the experience that especially girls who come to Germany only accompanied by one parent often see a kind of “fatherly friend” in me. Therefore, my colleagues often joke about “my daughters”. This poem has a lot of emotional deepth for me. It is probably the poem I have submitted the most times and consequently have received the most rejections for, often with the editors telling me, how much they liked it (but still couldn’t accept it). I put it into my “Abandoned” folder, because I am beginning to think it is too personal and maybe also hard to understand without the background information.”

“ It is one of those pieces which once written immediately dissatisfied me. It was obvious I didn't like but I couldn't change it. I tried moulding the words and the metaphors and yet, I couldn't. I was just stuck. I made peace then this was going be one of my mediocre pieces. The kind that you wrote just for sake of it and never look at it again. My goodbyes to this poem, much like in the poem, reads like distance. Detached and deep, it's a piece I've grown to like for the bitter-sweet emotions attached to it.”

“I trashed it because I don't generally write, and when I do I show very few people, if any. This especially feels too short and maybe even nonsensical to anyone who might not feel the way I do about a sibling. The only reason it's being submitted is because the friend I thanked in the email recommended it, knowing that it would be thrown aside anyway.”

“I wanted this poem to speak very powerfully on the complex relationship between a father and son. How as a son, you try to leave your father’s legacy behind but you are ultimately more alike than you care to admit. Perhaps it was the way i structured this poem or my word choice like using the word adumbrate that caused this poem to be trash.”

“I summed up thirty years of my life in less than 500 words. I was never sure if that was something to be proud of or ashamed of. This is one of the first pieces I wrote after 20-some-years of not writing. Truth is – always felt it was a little too personal to publish but I’ve gotten over that fear.”

“I wish I could remember why I trashed this one, I’ve thought about it often but never submitted it. A little cliché maybe but that has never stopped me before.”

“‘The Longest Night’ was my very first attempt at expressing my feelings on a real life event through poetry. I’m not familiar with writing my own story as well as I’m not familiar with talking about what’s bothering me. I rather write fiction and deal with my feelings alone, but the occurrences that inspired this piece were too much to handle in silence. At first I did not write it to be published, I thought it lacked cohesiveness when I first wrote this poem, and even after some editing it still isn’t exactly what I want it to be. However, I’m deciding on giving it a try, which is unusual for me. I hardly give second chances to myself.”

“I trashed this first draft poem about thirty-seconds after I wrote it on my phone as I couldn’t think who would want it. Every parent knows how hard it is to get a second of mind space but it’s a hard thing to sell despair when you’re looking at a fridge covered in luck and memories.”

“The poem Heart on my sleeve feels so personal that I could never articulate exactly how I felt. No matter how many times I rewrote it, the piece never felt right. Each rejection only reassured this feeling of it being incomplete.”

“I like to think that poetry can make a difference in the world. I appreciate a good topical poem that can take on daunting issues of our times — racism, abuse, addiction. Yet, much of my writing is obsessed with subjects such as family relationships and domestic activities that some might consider time-worn or sentimental. I try to eliminate corniness and take out cliches but I’m never quite sure I’ve done it. I start asking myself questions that take away the courage it takes to submit. Who wants to read another poem about a dead grandmother? What does a poem about knitting do to change the world? I know that no subject is off-limits but I keep trying to elevate my standards and make my writing more consequential. I do not trash the poems exactly; I “sideline” them. I have a couple dozen (maybe more) sidelined poems in my Google Docs. Occasionally I will dive into the files, resurrect a poem, and try to set it free.”

“Right before my writing hiatus, I created "i still think about you" as a last-ditch effort to feel like a good writer. I never thought I would send it out to any lit magazines because writing poetry was just a way for me to cope with the existential crisis I was having. There was a lot on my mind, and the only way to process it was through emotional phrases that sound kind of poetic. Finally, I decided to give this poem a chance with trash to treasure lit in hopes that there was at least one person out there who felt the same as me: abandoned, confused, and reminiscent of good times.”

“I wrote this poem after a long night up with a dear friend of mine who is a scientist. We often get into these late night philosophical and existential conversations about science, humanity, and such. They’re always really thought-provoking and filled with empathy and kindness. I always leave them feeling very “human”. I read this poem the next day and sort of just let it become a documentation of my thoughts about the night prior instead of interrogating it further into a cohesive poem.”

“I wrote this little prose ditty on a flight home from Florida. I was in a really strange headspace, it was an early flight, and I was sort of feeling the magnitude of my emotions. I looked out over the Florida landscape and it was all fingerling lakes and the sun kissing the tops of them all. I thought this would be a great setting for a love poem to my home state. Instead, this was all I could muster to write. I’ve attempted to come back to it a million times but always end up leaving it alone in my notes. In a way, it feels complete on its own and I love that it could continue but instead ends on a question, being the question I asked myself in that moment.”

“This piece felt too autobiographical, with not enough lyrical metaphor to connect the Victorian Language of Flowers to my own life experience. I received feedback that I should incorporate more repetition, but I found nowhere to plausibly do so, and the whole thing kind of sputtered out.”

“Fallacies of Youth is a poem that I didn’t edit very much, so I feel like the thoughts contained in it are disorganized and sometimes ramble on. I also feel like the descriptions can sometimes be heavy-handed.”

“I feel that Things I’ve Learned features too many mundane details, and is a little too moralizing for it to have the sophistication and nuance that distinguishes good poetry.”

“I write tabu, I love dark and strange subject matter. I truly enjoy this niche. Some poems get tucked away for a while for fear they are too out there. Sometimes, I pull them back out and rear their ugly heads.”