I wanted to post yesterday, but it was a busy day on little sleep — had to meet with some people at the office, do a lot of work (which I didn’t get to finish), and then do a reading at Beyond Baroque in Venice. Not only was I too tired to post when I got home, but I was also too upset. And I still don’t know how to write about this without revealing who I’m talking about — I don’t believe in airing dirty laundry in public (I don’t believe in airing a lot of things in public, which is probably why I’m a bad blogger). If you want to do a little digging and figure out who this is, you’ll be able to, but the more I think about it, the less I care. She’s the one who made it public.

Beyond Baroque is one of my favorite venues in LA, and there was a good crowd, many of them there to see my co-feature, Jack Cooper, who was outstanding. The open mic readers are always superb there, too, and they didn’t disappoint, including a great pair by Megan, who’d come with me. Everything was going great, until the host introduced me.

I’ll have to paraphrase — and I hope I’m getting this right — but she said something like: “Our next featured reader taught me a lot about integrity as an editor. I submitted to him once, and he rejected me. I submitted to him again, and never heard back. But I respected his work enough to publish him anyway, and I’ll keep submitting to RATTLE, even though he’ll probably reject me over and over again.” There was a little more that I can’t recall, but that was the gist. It was the most passive-aggressive introduction I’ve ever witnessed, and I was so stunned that she actually went there that it ruined my set. I stumbled along, and maybe no one even noticed, but I was too pissed off to actually get into the reading.

The back story: Yes, she submitted once in 2005, and I rejected her. Then I never heard from her again for another year, when I decided to submit something to her online journal. She accepted a poem, but in all of our email interactions, she seemed very passive-aggressive. Eventually it became so obvious that I asked her if I’d done anything to offend, and that’s when she told me about the second submission, which she says I “didn’t even bother responding to.” That was way back in 2005, and she’d never queried about it, never said another word up until this point.

This bothers me in particular because I take pride in responding to everyone, and I really and truly respect every submission we get. Sometimes I screw up, there’s a computer glitch, or something falls through the cracks, but I feel bad about that, and the guidelines make it very clear that the communication channels are open — I acknowledge every submission personally, and if you don’t hear back, feel free to query. Also, through the beauty of modern technology, I don’t have to delete anything. Every email submission we’ve gotten since I started working here is still on my computer. I can look up this woman’s supposed second submission — and it’s not there. I never got it. And I told her that. She had subsequently stopped being rude, and invited me to to read for her. I thought it was under the bridge.

Then she broad-sides me, right as I’m coming up to read. I’m suddenly in an untenable situation. I don’t want to talk about this in public. I can’t defend myself, because I’d just look defensive. I can’t attack her, because I’d just look like an ass. And I couldn’t think of any way to make light of it. So I decided it’d be best to just ignore it.

But it set a tone for the rest of the night — one of the open mic readers that followed actually pointed to me and said, “That guy has rejected me 100 times, too,” while the crowd sort of laughed nervously. Two other people came up to me afterward, more sad than upset, and told me that I’d rejected them, too.

This is something that I just don’t know how to deal with. I can’t go to any poetry event — especially in LA — without someone telling me I’d rejected them. A lot of times I’ll have the sudden realization that I’ve rejected everyone in the room. And as I become more aware of it, I’m noticing the animosity more and more. It’s as if people assume that editors enjoy sending rejection letters. That the reason I took this job was that I got to disappoint 99 out of 100 people week after week. But it’s the opposite that’s true — sending rejection letters is depressing. I hate it, and it never ends, week after week, feeling like a Scrooge, like the Poetry Police, like The Man. I don’t want to be The Man.

And then to top it off, lest anyone forget, my work gets rejected too! It got two rejections (Harvard Review and Zyzzyva), yesterday! And I say, “Shucks,” and snap my fingers…it doesn’t make me want to heckle Howard Junker.

Sorry, at this point I’m just venting. I know there are a few other editors who read this periodically — any advice on how to deal with the animosity?