The SASE

On eBay I bought a self-addressed and stamped envelope that the poet Charles Bukowski sent to Chiron Review in the 80's. This is the system, you send poems to a magazine or a publisher and if they like them they will use the SASE to reply to you. More likely they will not use your poems and return them in the SASE with a brief standard note telling so. Many poets have written about how they received their first rejection letter or how they have their drawers full of rejection slips. Even Bukowski got rejection slips. In the early days. I have framed the Bukowski envelope and it looks nice on my wall. It's a nice conversation piece; when someone asks about it I tell them the story of how it works and also, sort of by the way, I tell them that Chiron Review is actually the magazine where I had my first poem published. And I don't mention any of my rejection letters. Published in Chiron Review #72, 2003

 

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