Taking Stock of 2022–Part II: Submissions

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“Dear Sir or Madam would you read my book. It took me years to write, will you take a look…” —The Beatles, Paperback Writer

 

2022 was the first full year I had no teaching responsibilities, which meant more time for writing and more time for submitting my work to journals. Many writers I know would rather scrub toilets than submit their work, but I’ve generally liked the “submissions” process, a word that really should be reframed (as one of my mentors pointed out) as “offering” your work to others, rather than submitting to anything or anyone.

Why do so many writers hate submitting? Because it sets us up for rejection. Most literary journals reject at least 80-90% of what’s offered to them. And the top journals accept less than 1%. A rejection can easily be (mis)interpreted by our inner critic and societal expectations as a message that you are a bad writer. But really, this isn’t about you. Having been a reader for journals and residency applications, I’ve seen a lot of good work that gets passed over, simply because there’s so much of it. The process of winnowing down to find the best fit for a particular venue can be excruciating. So rather than thinking of rejection as being a condemnation of my work or my writing abilities, I think of it more like playing the lottery or entering a raffle. Likely, I’m not going to win, but occasionally, I do… and that’s lovely.

I’ve also made it a point not to let any rejection bother me for more than 10 minutes. Well… occasionally 15, if the rejection’s accompanied by a snarky letter (which is rare, but has happened). And that is a very good New Year’s resolution to have. A second one might be a goal to accumulate 100 rejections in 2023.

I had a better than average year for submissions in 2022:
–24 journals/anthologies accepted 28 poems. 48 poetry submissions were rejected; 42 are pending.
–Fiction was more typical. I submitted short stories to 31 journals. 1 was accepted, 25 rejected, 5 pending.
–For essays, I had 1 acceptance, 9 rejections, and 4 pending.

And most exciting, my fourth book, Immigrants, a short-story collection was accepted after accumulating only 15 rejections!

So, adding up the numbers, while I’m delighted about 27 acceptances, I only got 97 rejections in 2022. Hope I do better in 2023.

 

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Taking Stock of 2022–Part I: Won’t Get Fooled Again

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“An artist needs to be something like a whale swimming with his mouth wide open, absorbing everything until he has what he really needs.”–Romare Beardon

Ten days into 2022, I lost my brother, Danny–an unexpected death due to an imploded port. The malfunction had scheduled for repair, but that had been delayed due to COVID (one of many statistics that would not be included in the pandemic’s path of destruction). Beset with mental illness from the age of 15, which was later accompanied by a host of physical problems, Danny’s life was not easy and neither was our relationship. Yet, as teens, we bonded over baseball and rock music. I’d play the guitar and we’d sing together. Danny would ask me to listen as he turned the amp on high and belted along with The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” As his illness became worse, he got more delusional about being a rock star, his stubborn insistence occasionally edging on violence when my parents tried to curtail the raucous sound from being blasted out into the neighborhood.

When I think of what I “absorbed” this year, this sad life event from early January continues to stand out despite its countering with one of my happiest life events: the birth in September of my grandchild, Manu. Both have inspired a lot of writing, and watching the awe and wonder with which Manu approaches the world fills me with a poignancy hard to describe without resorting to clichés about both the preciousness and fragility of life, and how one of the most healing things we can do for grief (at least for me) is to continue to practice gratitude and look forward, even as we continue to struggle to make sense of the cracks in our past.

Meanwhile, the echoes of Won’t Get Fooled Again continue to resonate as a backdrop on my musings, as in the song I can feel both the anger at the state of the world and (despite the sarcasm) the hope of better tomorrows that don’t need to be mere delusions. I say this after reading about the Governor of Texas sending busloads of migrants to the Vice President’s House in subfreezing weather on Christmas Eve–an anti-nativity story if there ever was one. However one feels about the situation at our borders, it’s this kind of deliberate cruelty that triggers my anger at both sides of the government for “fooling us” into thinking that they care. And yet, I hang on to the hope of better tomorrows, reflected in the many people who are on the streets, helping migrants and other unhoused people who are stranded in the cold.

I’m determined not to get fooled (or worse, despondent) in 2023. Out of grief comes hope, the awe of new discovery, and the determination to work for a better world.

 

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Critique: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

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I recently came across a social media post from someone who talked about the difficulty of being asked to critique poetry that in his words, “isn’t very good.” The writer didn’t want to make people feel bad by being honest, and yet he felt strongly that standards for “good art” shouldn’t be compromised. He tried to resolve the issue by comparing the situation to music. No one would expect to give a concert after their first three violin lessons, he rationalized. So perhaps I can make up some cards that say things like, “take a course, learn what a cliché is, learn what triteness is, and read some really good poems. Take your time. You’re not going to get it in a week.”

 

As a Suzuki parent, I’ve witnessed many beginner violin concerts featuring cute little kids with not too many more than three weeks of violin lessons scratching their way through Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. No one expects the audience to have a great musical experience hearing them; yet, this teaches these children early on that they have a voice and what they are saying through their music matters enough for people to listen to them despite their flaws and inexperience. This is an important lesson not only for the children, but for everyone in our goal-oriented society. Our all-or-nothing approach when it comes to fame and accomplishment minimizes the personal sharing of one’s art on whatever “level” it’s at, and amplifies only those who reach the highest bars of success, causing many to quit and abandon their own artistic voices when they realize they’re never going to reach that level.

 

This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t learn what a cliché is and work to avoid triteness in our writing. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep practicing our music and try to get better. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t read great poems or listen to musicians we admire. I’m all for studying great writers and musicians and being wowed by them. I’d just like to see a more permeable playing field instead of a high fence between those who have it (and are therefore defined as “good”) and those who don’t (defined as “bad”). Why can’t we feel joy in praising the ambition of a poem, even if its execution might reflect the poet’s inexperience? Or—even better—praise the one true line or phrase that leaps over that fence and truly sings?

 

In teaching violin to children, Dr. Suzuki’s philosophy is to fix one thing at a time. One week (or for as long as it takes) you focus only on bow hold; the next on phrasing, etc. We should be that gentle to each other in writing—giving criticism that doesn’t overwhelm and overload, and which will help the writer on their path—whether that be to take one step further toward writing great poems, or to simply process what they can’t easily express in other ways. And instead of telling writers their poetry is “bad” or too far from the high bar of poets we all admire, we can simply say, “I hear you! Your voice matters.”

 

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Manu and the Pachelbel Canon

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About a week ago, my daughter was walking Baby Manu around, humming the Pachelbel Canon. I started improvising the second melody line and soon we were switching back and forth, not paying too much attention to exactly what we were doing, but it didn’t matter. We were both having fun and Manu was transfixed. I noticed that even at a few days old, he responded strongly to music, and that singing could be as effective as motion in calming him. Since I’m still recovering from my broken collar bone and can’t walk the baby around yet, singing has been my go-to in trying to subvert that fussy time where he’s needing (but not quite able) to go down for a nap, or waiting those few crucial moments for his Mom to be ready for his next feeding. It doesn’t really matter what I sing, and often I just make up on-the-spot raps about Manu’s moment du jour, tapping his foot or hand to keep the rhythm. No matter what I do, he’s usually pleasantly distracted, and lately, he’s beginning to smile and laugh. It’s great to have an appreciative and responsive audience.

Of course in our family, it’s sometimes difficult to separate the enjoyment of music from future expectations. At only ten weeks old, Manu’s already been praised for conducting the tinny version of the Pachelbel Canon that accompanies the rocking of his baby swing, reaching his hand longingly at the piano when his mother plays with the baby on her lap, and responding with an interest that seems to go far beyond his developmental age to a violin solo. “He’s the sixth generation,” my mother exclaims proudly, as she forwards the video to the relatives in our extended musical family.

And when I see a picture like this, I realize that yes, I would feel joy in watching my grandchild learn the piano–or any musical instrument–but not out of any need to perpetuate the generations of my family’s musicality. Only because music is a heartbeat within us that, like any creative pursuit, amplifies our inner knowing and makes us more attuned to everything around us.

 

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Autumn Leaves

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This wonderful video of Nat King Cole singing Autumn Leaves was one of the final prompts for 30 Poems in November, last week. This is one of my favorite old jazz standards, though it’s something of an ear worm. For days afterwards the song stayed in my head, especially after I found and played not just one, but two videos that adopted Autumn Leaves to different classical styles. Of course, that made me want to rush to the piano and see what I could do with Autumn Leaves, which was still an impossibility with my broken clavicle.

But yesterday the orthopedist gave me the green light to start playing again (as long as I “let pain be my guide”–a loaded statement if there ever was one.) To make sure I didn’t overdo it, I set my timer for ten minutes and made sure to keep the left hand bass-line simple–not to play it like Rachmaninoff, or even like Beethoven. There was still a lot to explore in improvising, far more than my ear dared do. I stuck with the basics, not like the walk we took today in the woods, where map-less, we ended up on a different part of the road about half a mile from the car–a fairly typical experience when the unmarked trail is just too seductive not to follow it. I’d like to do more improvisations without a map and not be so worried about where I might end up.

Autumn is brilliant in New England in October–pure eye candy, as you can see in this picture. But in November, and often in early December, as well, the prevailing theme is brown. Chilly and cold.

Yet there’s a subtle beauty to the season, we just have to take a little more time to find it. Poem #29  touched on the varying shades of November: ochre, rust, mauve, sienna, even if at times the month feels like treading shadows. Today, a foggy rain is covering the farm. The autumn leaves, all raked up, are in the shed, eventually to be mixed into the compost to nurture spring’s new growth.

 

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Reframing A Past Mess-Up–A Lesson from 30 Poems in November

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In my “music memoir” IMPERFECT PITCH, I wrote about my first (and only) piano recital when I was nine years old: the intense sense of jittery, fog-induced isolation I felt when we arrived at the recital hall, enhanced when the emcee called my name. I walked to the dark stage where the piano waited for me. The beam of spotlight arrowed straight into my eyes, and I could feel everyone in the audience watching me, judging me, as the white notes, the black notes spread like a sea of crocodiles under my fingers. My dress itched, my legs swung in the air, and I had to squirm half off the stool to reach the pedal. I played the first note, a B, which sounded totally different from the mushy B on my piano at home: too soft. I pushed down harder, but the second phrase still sounded faint, as if it were straining to push through a dark cloud. I played the next phrase, nearly banging, and then a wrong note threw me into forgetting what came next. Forgetting everything. The entire piece flatlined.

I knew I wasn’t supposed to stop, so I kept playing, making up something that was kind of like the piece, which was also cross-handed and in b minor. As I traveled an unmarked trail through the thicket of the keyboard, I felt the audience’s eyes like the eyes of wild animals in the dark, tracking me until I finally decided I’d had enough and landed on a final b minor chord. I stood up and bowed, waiting in an endless moment of stunned silence until a trickle of applause finally came like a faint drizzle, as I steeled myself to remember to walk, not run, off the stage.

On the way home, my parents talked about other things, their modus operandi. If we don’t discuss it, it didn’t happen. It was a moment of shame for disappointing them, as well as myself.

But just last Sunday, 54 years later, at a workshop for 30 Poems in November, led by the fabulous Nerissa Nields that focused on song lyrics, in my 20-minute attempt to craft yet another new set of words to Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah I had an epiphany. I could reframe this moment as one of creativity and innovation, a moment where I used my ability to improvise to turn this looming disaster into a positive experience!

Of course, in the classical world I grew up in, improvising a prescribed melody was not what we were supposed to do. The goal was to memorize a piece and play it as close as possible to what we (or, in most cases, our teachers) believed the composer intended. And there’s validity to that, but there’s also validity to being inspired by what someone else might offer and lending the best of our creative selves to join the conversation.

Anyway, here are my lyrics. I hope they inspire you!

CREATIVITY SETS US FREE
(to the tune of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah)

My fingers stumble on the keys
My face red hot, my shaky knees
The audience so silent in the dark
I can’t remember what to play
And here I am, so on display
How can I tap into my inner spark?

Motivation, innovation, improvisation, creativity sets us free

I search the crowd for a face that smiles
Not one looms out in either aisle
I’m squirming in the spotlight’s heavy glow
And then my fingers find some keys
Play random notes, but still they please
The song inside my heart begins to flow

Motivation, innovation, improvisation, creativity sets us free

So I keep pounding the walls of doubt
Dig deep to turn my insides out
De-mine polluted landscapes filled with lies
Keep taking steps to stop the shitty
Voices reeking with self-pity
Focus on what’s hidden in the skies

Innovation, improvisation, self-acceptance, creativity sets us free

Come have a cup of tea with me
We’ll show each other how to see
The inner surge that keeps us going strong
We’ll write, we’ll sing, we’ll dance, we’ll play
No one can take our voice away
We’ll codify ourselves into our songs

Innovation, improvisation, self-acceptance, creativity sets us free

 

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Gratitude, Mourning, and Alice’s Restaurant

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Sometimes it’s hard for me to get into Thanksgiving, even though as a Jew, it at least feels more inclusive than the hoopla around Christmas. Yet, the holiday is still problematic, especially as we find ourselves needing to let go of the old elementary school story of the Pilgrims and Indians sitting down at the table together and sharing a big feast–perhaps a moment in our common history, but certainly not where the tragic plot ended.

So, as I attempt to pull off small bits of our family dinner menu (cooking one-handed is not easy), I expect to again be listening to the livestream of the United American Indians of New England National Day of Mourning from Plymouth. Here’s a snippet of a poem I wrote last year on that topic.

….earlier I listened

to indigenous speakers lamenting loss of their land,
made a pastry with cranberries

harvested from the place pilgrims landed,
wondered what truth in bogs,

in magenta juices
spilling onto the oven’s bottom,

refusing to be smothered
by my pale and doughy crust?

And I think this cartoon I saw on Facebook also needs some contemplation as we think about what is happening right now to immigrants in our country, the Governor of Texas going so far as to call for the National Guard to shoot immigrants on site.

But on to gratitude: One of the many things I’m grateful for is  that my ancestors were able to escape pogroms and come to this country to build a new life. That is my wish for those now facing death threats, gang violence, war, climate devastation, and other pressing issues who are now seeking to cross our borders.

Thanksgiving to me is also all about Arlo Guthrie’s, Alice’s Restaurant, which we used to search for on the car radio when we drove from Massachusetts to my parents home in New York City every Thanksgiving morning. Hilarious and uplifting in its snarky sarcasm, the best message I take home from Arlo is that we don’t need to accept that status quo, even as we do feel gratitude. I look forward to sharing this family tradition with my grandchild, Manu who will be spending his first Thanksgiving with us tomorrow.

So, whatever y’all do or don’t do to celebrate this fourth Thursday in November, I hope that as the song comes around again on the guitar, you’ll think about gratitude, and mourning, and hope for those in search of a better world.

 

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Welcome to my Blog: Music and Musings

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What does it mean to be a creative soul in a challenging and often uncreative universe?

How can we tackle those challenges to embrace our inner creativity in whatever form it takes?

To inspire you on your journey, here are some hopefully helpful snippets and contemplations from my life as a writer, activist, and wannabee musician–the good, the bad, and the ugly, but mostly stuff I’m grateful for!

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