I recently sent in a Poem to a regionally distributed magazine. Having been a writer of songs and poems for as long as I can remember, I would consider myself a poet. And like most who write, believe very little of it is worthy of anything except my own pondering. Although this particular poem was something I've been more proud of over the last few years.
In my sock drawer and still on the same paper that it was originally written while sitting on an Ozark mountainside at daybreak on a very cold, wet, foggy winter morning, this was nothing dreamed up at the kitchen table. It has character.
Well over a month ago, I decided to send the magazine a copy along with a release for publish. After waiting and hearing nothing, finally last week, an email arrived. I was at first excited to learn that they wanted to publish the poem! But, they wanted to edit.
After a few days and nights of consideration (even at 3 a.m.), I agreed to let them edit. Not to publish, just to edit. I thought "what the harm?" as it's only to see what
they would do with my work. After all, "I might learn something!"
On Thursday of last week I received the edited version. To my frustratoin whole lines were re-arranged, words were substituted, and the title was even changed! "What the...?" The publisher insisted that my work was good but that "editors make bad writing readable, and good writing great." I was thinking he meant that I fell into the latter.
Over the next two days, he seemed to take great pains to explain to me terms like "pathetic fallacy" and "religious-philosophical ideas." His opinion was that this type of writing compared with the works of William Wordsworth. My question was "if you can identify my style of writing, then it must be a recognizable form, why this need to change it?" I feel like he was over analyzing. My daughter who's creative writing earned her a Chancellor's scholoarship to Arkansas described their re-write as "dumbed down." I agreed.
After much thought and struggle, (I've always dreamed of having my work published) I reluctantly asked to withdraw my submission to the magazine, as what they wanted to publish was simply not my work. They agreed to shred the copy, but left off by asking me to submit more of my work in the near future. The only sense I can make of that, is that the writing was indeed something they saw worthy of consideration. If only they'd just left it alone.
