24 Comments
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pamm hanson's avatar

Thank you very much!😝

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X. P. Callahan's avatar

You are very welcome.

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Lev Raphael's avatar

13 months?????

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X. P. Callahan's avatar

Yes indeed. They got overwhelmed with thousands of submissions, maybe because so many people wanted to turn the rejection into an erasure poem.

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Lev Raphael's avatar

I'm curious about the line in the original text that had the word "suck" in it.

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X. P. Callahan's avatar

See the update (above).

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Celeste's avatar

Couldn't be better said or written. thanks!

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Cathy Wickham's avatar

Whaa?

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X. P. Callahan's avatar

I erased all but a few words of the rejection email. See the update (above).

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Mary Holscher's avatar

An excellent erasure poem! I am trying to imagine, though, how the rejection letter used the word “suck” in a sentence. For example, “Most poems people submit to us suck.” Or, “It matters to us to accept only poems that don’t suck.”

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X. P. Callahan's avatar

See the update (above).

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Mary Holscher's avatar

Thanks! I didn’t know you could erase just a single letter in a word in erasure poem. I thought you had to use the whole word as is. “Sucks” makes more sense in an informal-style rejection letter. It was hard for me to imagine “suck” though.

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Kortney Garrison's avatar

This is just about the best response to a reject that I can think of! Well played!

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Michelle's avatar

You’re amazing.

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fritz7784's avatar

I have never understood the vibe of that place myself, but I am "An Old."

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X. P. Callahan's avatar

So am I. But I salute their humor and their chutzpah. All the same, with more than a year between submission and response, I won't be sending them anything else. After all, I don't have all the time in the world.

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Thomas Rist's avatar

Sorry you got the rejection. Love the poem! 😂

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X. P. Callahan's avatar

🙏🏻

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Janie Braverman's avatar

Stopping in here to tell you this made me laugh. I'm guessing you had an erasure of stuck or something like that. Going to look right now!

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LeeAnn Pickrell's avatar

Rejection into art!

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Carole Roseland's avatar

Hmmm, did they reject your idea of promoting paper straws to suck up Mountain Dew??? Thanks for a laugh!🤣

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X. P. Callahan's avatar

You’re welcome.

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Ann Collins's avatar

I love how you turned this letter into art.

R.L. Stine saved a wonderful letter that read:

"Dear Mr. Stine, I've read all 62 of your books, and they're all just terrible."

He framed it.

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X. P. Callahan's avatar

LOL! Thanks.

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