The Rejection Letter:Seven linked haiku on the writer’s most common experience.


[Haiku: a poetic form originating in Japan, consisting of three lines, the first and last of which have five syllables each, with a middle line of seven syllables.]

1.

The SASE
Waits grimly in my mailbox:
Rejection letter.

2.

Dear author, it says.
Thank you for your submission.
It’s not good enough.

3.

Rejection letters.
Words on paper, nothing more.
Yet how loathed and feared.

4.

How to discard it?
Burn it or rip it to shreds?
Or, perhaps, just flush?

5.

I should recycle.
Reuse or compost. But wait.
I know: Send it back.

6. & 7.

Dear Ms. Editor
I’m sorry to inform you
of my decision.

But your rejection
Does not meet my current needs.
Yours sincerely, Jill.

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