To Land In

Image of the Day:  Small snowflakes sifting down, each one looking hesitant to land in such a snowscape.


Sometimes I am really surprised when a journal accepts one poem out of all the other ones I send in a submission packet that I think will fit, based on my reading and research. 
For example, I have a poem in the recent issue of Harpur Palate.  This was the first time I had ever sent to them.  They accepted my poem "Her Pregnancy Dreams."  And I thought to myself, what resonated about that poem for the editors? Why choose that one? I mean, I like that poem, but you never know. I just got my contributor's copy yesterday in the mail, and after reading through it, I can understand.
Somehow a theme must have started to coalesce from all the submissions they received, and from the first poems that they wanted to accept.  Themes of motherhood, dreams, and water images.  I'm sure from an editor's point of view, that must seem so cool, as if that particular issue was meant to be.  And of course I'm always happy/relieved/surprised that my way of thinking about things--or in this case--dreaming about things, is in fact not so weird.  That other people think about them too. So in this particular case, for this particular poem, I am enormously lucky.  Some journals announce a theme and that's always fun to submit to, but some journals let it happen serendipitously. It's a lot of fun to be involved when that happens. 
And so I need to remember to try and tell myself to just submit the poems I have.  Cause who knows?


The Other Side of the Argument
But she prefers the morning glory,
How slowly its bloom unfurls,
How its curl of vine
Catches the flaw in masonry
First, then the crosshatch
Of kite string we hung
From the porch
As a makeshift trellis,
How it needs only a foothold
To fill half the day with blue.


Eric Pankey