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Buds in silhouette, cloudy day
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Garden glove masquerading as kitten
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| Western Saw-whet Owl |
Here's the problem that is, perhaps, not a problem: you know that I write poems and that I take photos. I've had poems published since 2008 (about a year after I returned to writing). I've had photos published since 2008--as soon as I started submitting them. What's more, my hit rate, my acceptance rate, is considerably higher for photos than for poems.
I *work* on my writing. I've attended conferences and workshops, I've worked with other poets for years on end. I've read so very many poems, mostly for love, but still. I've been trying to write--I have been writing--since I was nine, since I first read a poem and thought, I want to do that. Words have always been my strength and my joy. Some of my poems are quite fine, some are too closed, some just aren't very good. There is a lot of competition, as witnessed by the ten thousand poetry journals out in English. About half of what I write gets published, eventually. My hit rate, based on total submissions, is something like 20%.
My photos, I take on the fly. Something catches my eye, I find it, I snap it fast as I can set the exposure and speed. I've looked at others' photos, but not a lot (not by my standards) and admired what they did. I have certainly never taken a course, have not even consulted with someone else. I didn't even know that I had an eye until we went to Paris and to Greece in 1999. But editors seem to love them! They often accept every photo in the batch. I've been paid perhaps the highest compliment, namely, a vendor stealing one of my photos to put on a T-shirt. That settlement constitutes the only real money I've ever been paid for Art. My hit rate for photos is over 70%.
So, the problem? I value the poems more. I don't mind, much, if photos get rejected (perhaps because it is relatively infrequent) but I take it rather personally when poems get rejected. Most conflicting is when an editor rejects all the poems but takes (some or all or most of) the photos. Anyone got any non-anodyne corrective thoughts I might call on when my pictures are valued more than my words?
