Screening Shenandoah submissions

It’s the last week of classes! I’m participating in what will be a brilliant reading at 4:30 today (in Hillel on W&L’s campus), from the beautiful Literary Field Guide to Southern Appalachia! And can I say it again?–this intense term is nearly DONE!

In corners of time, I’m also screening poems for Shenandoah, both for the fall 2020 issue and for the Graybeal-Gowan Prize for Virginia writers (both categories get equal consideration for publication). I thought it might be useful for some people to know what that process looks like, and I understand it better myself than I did a year ago, when I was just beginning my tenure as poetry editor.

I log on to Submittable for a 20-30 minute block on most days during the submission month (this time, Nov 15-Dec 15) and do a quick screening, marking each new batch yes, maybe, no. The majority of subs are “maybe”: I can see some great language going on but I’m not ready to make a decision. “No” is for the poems that clearly don’t fit what Shenandoah is all about–the poems we want involve powerful material, skillfully treated. If a first reading reveals a lot of cliche, ineffective linebreaks, and a high level of predictability, I just can’t spend a lot of time on it (we’ve already received more than 600 batches of poems and I have a time-consuming OTHER job, with no course releases or extra money for this editorial labor of love). “Yes” is vanishingly rare this early in the reading period, but occasionally a poem grabs me by the throat. In that case, I wait a day or two, reread, and then ask Editor-In-Chief Beth Staples what she thinks. If we both agree that it would be tragic if some other magazine scooped the poem(s) up, I accept the work right off. I don’t accept ANYTHING without Beth’s agreement. Usually we’re on the same page, but occasionally we disagree, and then both of us have to consider: “do I need to fight for this one?”

Final decisions on all those maybes will happen by sometime in January, as well as selection of the Graybeal-Gowan winner (by both me and Beth–hiring an outside judge would decrease the prize amount so we decided against). I might write individualized rejection to poets who came close, but mostly a work-study student rejects what I’ve marked as a “no,” using a form letter.

Some things I like:

• Amazing poems! I love editing because I get to bruit terrific poetry.
• When the poet takes the time to address us by name and mention something they liked in a recent issue (although I try not to read the letter before the poems, the way the Submittable screen works means I sometimes catch phrases before clicking on the attachment).
• Professionally formatted subs, with one poem per page in a single file and an easy-to-read font. This whole bullet point is relatively trivial, but if you’re really anxious to make every little detail play in your favor, most editors, I think, have a (sometimes unconscious) preference for serif fonts. I am less fussy than many; I really don’t care which one. Shenandoah‘s font is Minion.

Some things I don’t like:

• Turning down poems I really like. I still have regrets about work I rejected last year, in fact. But 800+ batches of poems, 15 spots…the math just means good work slips away.
• Separate submission of every poem–too many clicks! Also, submitting multiple times in a single period without being asked to do so will get you rejected unread.
• Submission of fiction/ nonfiction during a poetry-only period. That’s a jerk move that means extra work for Beth when she’s busy trying to finalize the new issue (debuting this Friday!).
• Cover letters that begin with an insult to the submission guidelines or the magazine itself. You’d be surprised.
• Poems including racist, sexist, or other dehumanizing language, or otherwise displaying prejudice against groups of people. Again, you’d be surprised.
• This is more trivia, but I haven’t yet liked a poem that’s centered on the page or in a goofy font. I’m open, too, to reading work by teenagers, but in almost every case it just isn’t skilled enough yet. Let your work cook longer before hitting send. Poetry keeps.
• That I don’t have time to write more personal rejections. Honestly.