Our So-Called “Great Poems”
After receiving notification from Catalyst magazine that my poem “I Be A Bad Dude”, I was both enthralled and perplexed. I was enthralled over having a poem from my first submission to a magazine being selected for publication. I was perplexed over the question of why hadn’t the magazine selected “my great poems” that I sent in the same package.
I laugh every time I think about the notion of “my great poems.” What hubris! I had not been published yet and I thought I was sending “great poems” in my first submission ever to my first publisher ever. I actually threw “I Be a Bad Dude” into the mix just to max out the submissions requirement of 1-to-5 poems. I didn’t think much of it. I wrote it in 5 minutes, edited it in 10 minutes and I was done. To my surprise the editors loved it. Now that I have learned one or two things over time and after reading it the my pre-pre-senior years I understand why. It was the great poem. The others were not.
Stay tuned for my next post on “My Journey as a Poet ”
Previous Posts of this series can be found at:
Post #1
https://jtjohnpoet.com/2017/06/13/my-journey-as-a-poet/
Post #2
https://jtjohnpoet.com/2017/06/20/my-journey-as-a-poet-post-2/
