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Using My Poetry Submission Tracker to Decide What Poetry Journals to Submit to
I hit a great streak in the spring and early summer of this year. I had four poems come out in different journals about the same time. It was great and I felt exhilarated. I felt successful. I felt . . .something other than the void into which I routinely send my pieces without a response — for months. Lately, I have been living in that void. No acceptances.
Yesterday, I pulled up my poetry submission tracker to take a look at the state of things in my submission world. I use a computer spreadsheet. For every submission, I note the name of the poem, the journal name, the date of the submission, whether it is a simultaneous submission, and whether it is accepted or declined.
Almost everything that I send out is a simultaneous submission, meaning that I send the same piece out to multiple journals in the hopes that one of them will publish the piece. A submission tracker allows me to know where I have submitted that same piece and to withdraw it if it is accepted elsewhere.
I am sure that every poet struggles to find some sort of way to deal with all the variables in the submissions process. I suspect that most are more dogged and businesslike than I am about the whole thing. They send out more, they write more, they get accepted more. I seem to struggle on all…
