A Poets View

Being both a writer an editor I have the unique perspective of understanding each role.  The relationship can be either positive or negative depending on the writer and his of her understanding of the editor.

When I first began to submit poetry to magazines - 3o odd years ago I sent a piece to a fairly well know magazine.  The editor responded to my work within about a month or so.  Now mind you those days were not computerized so all of this correspondence took place via snail mail.  Long story short over the course of about two months there were letters back and forth between me and the editor about every 3 days.  Why? The editor liked the poem yet she wanted me to change some of the wording, change some of the stanzas and overall basically just change the poem around to suit her needs.  After two months of revising and more revising, I looked at my poem and realized this is not even my poem anymore.  I wrote back to the editor and said “I don’t want to revise any longer as the poem isn’t even what I originally wrote” The reply “We are paying you for this poem and need it revised to suit our magazine.”  I thought to myself “is this the way things are in the writing life, you have to keep compromising in order to get published?” I wrote back with a short and sweet ” withdraw my submission.”  I never heard from her again.

Since that day I never worked with any editor who required submission revisions.  And, as an editor myself for my own ezine, which I’ve been publishing now for about 9 years I never ask any writer to revise their work.  I understand that once a piece is submitted, that is the final draft and would never ask any to compromise their work.

Most editors that I know do not agree with me.  There is a nationally known magazine with an editor who’s mantra is revise, revise and revise.  I would love to know how many submissions he receives per year.  Now granted if there is a spelling error I will contact the poet before I just go ahead and make the change.  Sometimes there is a reason for shall we say “unique” spelling as it applies to poetry. 

As an editor I firmly believe in the poet’s own unique voice and accept their poetry as a creative piece of art rather than an English assignment.  Granted when you submit your poetry to magazines it is entirely up to you as the author to agree or disagree about revisions.  Just know that your work is important, unique and is reflective of your thoughts and creativity - not that of the editor.

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