A visual aid to the forthcoming story provided by Eric Conveys an Emotion:

One day at young writers’ camp, my friend Seth, who had just the night before been prescribed some incredibly strong decongestants for a stubborn cold, stumbled into breakfast with a well-bandaged hand.

“Seth!” I said, “what’s with the hand?”

“I punched myself in the mirror.”

“What? Why?”

“I don’t know. I just saw myself in the mirror and thought, ‘That [expletive deleted] deserves it.’”

I don’t know if Seth still writes — I hope that he does, as he was an incredibly talented writer — but, if he does, I’m fairly sure that he’d agree that this is an accurate description not just of decongestant-fueled teenage angst but also of the feeling one typically gets after receiving a certain number of rejection slips in a week. Say, eight. Five if it’s a bad week otherwise. But definitely eight.

Lately, however, I’ve been getting a very strange new type of slip — the it’s not you, it’s me rejection.

Take, for instance, the e-mail I received about a residency I’d applied for — a “dear applicant” (like “Dear John?”) letter explaining that the residency program was shut down completely, due to insufficient funding. This is, of course, depressing on a great many levels, mostly because it brings to mind how difficult it is for any arts organization to barely survive, much less thrive, nowadays.

And this brings to mind my second it’s not you it’s me rejection, this one from the New Review of Literature. It seems that, due to a variety of circumstances, including the collapse of its primary distributor, this very fine literary magazine is ceasing publication with its Spring 2008 issue. Though this is incredibly depressing, the editor’s (Paul Vangelisti’s) response to the situation is nothing less than inspiring. Enclosed with the rejection was a manifesto of sorts, published as an editorial in the Spring issue, bewailing the fact that “the current publishing and literary scene appear[s] dire, impoverished, and hopelessly conformist and institutionalized,” and sounding an alarm about “the need for action, for a departure from previous modes of production and distribution.” Their action? A bi-annual review of literature to be published and distributed free of charge, aptly titled or. What’s more exciting than people with the passion to innovate, to recreate the way we read and receive poetry? The editors ask that you write for a copy. I already have.

I received a third it’s not you, it’s me rejection, but this one stirred me to quite a bit of thought, and I think it best to reserve an entire entry for it. Plus, I’m excited to start thinking about tomorrow’s NaPoWriMo poem, and, perhaps, do a little tinkering on my last SECRET NaPoWriMo post.

Whenever I think, say, or hear the word “SECRET,” incidentally, I cannot help but think, say, or hear it the way it’s pronounced in the Conan O’Brien skit.