Thursday, June 19, 2008

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES (Anthony Owens)

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We strongly encourage all of you would-be “poets” without a long and distinguished history of publication in the finest of Pobiz’s literary journals (i.e., the unblurbables) NOT TO SUBMIT YOUR TRASHY, ILLITERATE SCRIBBLINGS TO US!!!!!!!!!!! Submissions by such nobodies WILL NOT BE READ, EVER!!!! UNDERSTAND BOZOS?

Now that that’s out of the way, the best answer we can give writers who would like to know before submitting to us whether our journal is the right venue for their work is to purchase (at the full retail price) then read, read, and read as many of our back issues as you can possibly afford to purchase, in order to get an idea of what we’re looking for. Yes, we already know exactly what that is, as reflected by what we have already published again and again and again, and you won’t change our minds or tastes. Furthermore, the hordes of you purchasing and reading many, many back issues in the hopes of someday being somebody in PoBiz (yeah right!) keeps the lights on up in this bitch.

That being said, WE GET FAR MORE POETRY IN ONE HOUR THAN WE COULD EVER READ IN A TRILLION YEARS. On top of that, we abhor reading contemporary poetry (DAH! That’s why we charge such a high submission fee for our quarterly poetry contests.). I mean, who the fuck reads poetry in the age of the iPhone? Still, we might just deign to read your submission, as long as you can provide us with proof of purchase of at least fifteen of our back issues and pay us a modest per-line reading fee.

WE DO NOT ACCEPT POETRY SUBMISSIONS FROM JANUARY 1ST THROUGH JUNE 30TH OR FROM JULY 2ND THROUGH JANUARY 1ST. ALL POETRY SUBMITTED DURING THOSE TIMES WILL BE SUMMARILY USED AS TOILET PAPER BY OUR STAFF AND EDITORIAL BOARD!!!!!!!!! NO EXCEPTIONS!!!!!!!!

Please be aware that we neither have the time nor the inclination to give you constructive feedback on your work or to engage in any sort of editorial work that would result in the publishing of your “not-ready-for-prime-time” submissions. While editors and publishers of other genres (namely the novel) do this sort of thing, novels sell, whereas books and journals of poetry do not. Hence, there would be no return on our investment to make it worth our while to help you. Yes, you may technically consider us “editors,” but what we mean by that moniker is that we are always more than happy to publish the already finished and finely polished work of high muck-a-mucks in PoBiz, like everything ever written or that ever will be written by the illustrious Heather McHugh and the incomparable Henri Cole. Those people are SOMEBODIES, whereas most of you are not.

GOT IT TOUGH GUYS?

On a final note, to you fucking byotches who insist on mixing prose and poetry in the same envelope, YOUR SUBMISSIONS WILL BE SUMMARILY USED AS TOILET PAPER BY OUR STAFF AND EDITORIAL BOARD!!!!!!!

NO EXCEPTIONS!!!!!!!!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

A terrific parody, Anthony, so close to the real thing that it made me cringe.

Anonymous said...

Thanks Anca. Years after my MFA, I've finally mustered the will to begin submitting some of my work here and there, even in the face of such resistance.