Unable to Use

One might consider praising them for their move into the twenty-first century, and for tyring to speed up what they themselves call "a response less prompt than we would wish." But there are reasons not to, I've recently found:

(1) one cannot tell from the subject "Your Submission" whether good news lurks in the virtual envelope or not, so that one cannot set aside, with some assurance, the bad news itself for later.

(2) one cannot feel the size of the virtual envelope itself, to see if one's virtually submitted poems themselves are returned virtually, the case being that if one could, of course, one would set aside, with absolute assurance, the bad news itself for later.

Hence, down with the rather prestigious (though, in itself, somewhat less-than-gripping) journal's new policy of responding to e-mail submissions via e-mail. Down, down with the Ken-on Rev-ew itself!

The Dickinsonian oracle offers the following insight to all of us who cannot be used, ourselves:

Which is best? Heaven -
Or only Heaven to come
With that old Codicil of Doubt?
I cannot help esteem

The "Bird within the Hand"
Superior to the one
The "Bush" may yield me
Or may not -
Too late to choose again.
(E. Dickinson, 1021)