just thought I'd chime in here - you know, when you send your work off to various publications ???  you don't always get a rejection slip - you get nothing, nada, zilch.  you don't even get someone speaking Spanish from Indonesia via Zimbabwe. I've also found - I'm my own worst critic of late, I think you have to be in the effort to level up.  might not be the way to express it, wouldn't want to hurt any feelings, but I got to the point I wanted something more and if I couldn't manage to deliver it - I'd just keep it to myself.  Oh . . . yeah, I think I can write- sometimes...

 grow some skin if you're serious or leave it alone.

I've read this with a bit of bemusement and certainly some interest as well. I consider myself to be a fairly intelligent person, yet I'm just not getting it. Or maybe I am.

I joined Poetry Circle over a year ago, and unfortunately do not participate in commenting or posting as much as I'd like to, but I try to read as much as I can as often as I can on the site. I am consistently amazed and often awed by the talent and diversity of the writers and their poetry here. There's plenty of stuff that I'm not wild about, and some that I can't even imagine got posted (. . .wait a minute, maybe that was my own stuff).

I've had my sorry ass stuff totally rejected, often criticized, sometimes surprisingly elevated and more often than not, thoughtfully critiqued. I've even had a poem pulled from the dank cellar of the rejection pile by an editor and brought back to viewing light.

Sure, it would be nice to have someone explain why your piece got rejected. I'd also like to know why I got picked last a few times for gym class basketball teams in sixth grade. Or why I didn't get an A+ on every term paper I put my heart and soul into. Stuff happens and as much as we'd like to know why, we're not always entitled to the time and attention we think we so deserve.

But I keep reading the work here and every now and then, I write a poem and I get something right (or almost right, but I keep trying).

Writing isn't about ego. Attacking those who don't embrace your words is just plain silly. Try to take a step back and see what you can learn at a distance. Either that, or you just distance yourself from anyone that doesn't share your viewpoint.

Let people reject your work if they want to.  You at least learn something about them that way.  Every poem has its audience.  Don't you want to learn who your poems' true audience is?  This is how you find out.

If you want people to pat your hand and say what a genius you are, don't go to a group of poets, especially ones who are serious about the craft and have read widely.  Folks like that would reject some of Shakespeare. 

Rejections hurt, but they force writers to look at their work again from someone else's viewpoint.  That's always good.

Love this thread, gotta bump it. All the rejected work I have read is shit, so in my eyes the editors are doing a good job. I come here to read quality poetry, not shit about heavy hearts and black souls... big up the editors for driving out the shit.