Okay, the first lesson actually is "don't trust Blogger with your fucking posts," so this will be a shorter version of what it swallowed earlier. I just finished helping to judge the Poetry West Chapbook Contest, and here are some things I learned from being on the other side of the contest door (not that I enter that many book contests yet).

• If you haven't achieved some sort of publication or recognition elsewhere, you probably shouldn't enter a contest with a whole book. You can eliminate at least half of book contest entrants with just a cursory look, and many of those are from people who clearly haven't ever done any publication besides self.
• Don't enter a chapbook contest without researching it a little. Get some information on the judges, previous winners, what-have-you. Sending your money off blind is equivalent to stuffing it up a cat's butt (sorry, I've been drinking).
• High-powered journal credits don't matter as much as you think they do. Our winner, Robert Perchan, had a sick set of poems whose publication credits would have lost (in terms of prestige) to a number of semi/finalists, plus multiple entries that didn't even make that level.
• For contest-runners, the solution to Foetry/conflict situations is simple: don't pick someone with whom you have a conflict of interest (duh), keep your rules and processes transparent, and address the facts directly if someone tries to make an issue.
• Unity of "voice" (a problematic word, but nonetheless) is more important than unity of style is more important than unity of theme. None is absolutely necessary. Even 24 pages of poems all on the same thing (especially a very narrowly defined thing like "24 insects I found in my house this morning") is going to wear on most readers.
• Follow the fucking guidelines. Damn.

I may think of more, in which case I'll add them.

You know what I really hate in reviews? The presumptuous use of "we" to speak for more people than the reviewer is actually qualified to speak for. (This is much more prevalent in movie and mainstream book reviews than in poetry reviews, fortunately, though it still pops up in poetry reviews.)

Surely you've seen it (yes, and don't call me Shirley): the writer, in speaking of something in the book or movie or whatever, says something like "This twist stretches our suspension of disbelief to the breaking point." Well, now. Funny thing, but 99% of the time, I didn't experience any such thing, making me wonder if the reviewer is trying to tell me what I think I felt is incorrect, or if he/she is simply using the royal "we" to seem more important.

There are a few instances where the use can be perfectly acceptable, mainly if the writer is using "we" in a more general sense of an audience being presented to ("the movie never tells us the reasons for so-and-so's motivation") or to make a statement that's not really subjective ("we're all human"). Most of the time, however, it's junkity junk junk. In one of the "Questions for the Movie Answer Man" books he did before he became utterly useless, Roger Ebert condemned the use of "we" in movie reviews. Now he uses the word constantly, in grating fashion.

We don't know about you, but it really bothers us when other people try to put words in our mouth or thoughts in our head.

Fastest response via snail mail: Margie, 7 days (rejection)
Slowest response via snail mail: CutBank, 266 days (rejection)
Never responded via snail mail: Maize (including multiple queries)

Fastest response via e-mail: eye, <1 day (acceptance)
Slowest response via e-mail: Blue Moon Review, withdrew after 243 days and no responses to two queries
Never responded via e-mail: Southeast Review

Journal that excited me the most with the "nice" rejection plus ink: Shenandoah
Acceptance that caused me the most excitement: 32 Poems
Nicest and most helpful response to a query: Atlanta Review
Least helpful response to a query: California Quarterly (saying they had no record of my submission, then returning it to me a week later with ink and "please submit again")
Nicest response to withdrawing simultaneous submissions accepted elsewhere: (tie) Water~Stone & RHINO
Most poems of a five-poem submission withdrawn due to publication elsewhere: RHINO, 3

Submissions out (not counting places I don't expect to respond at this point): Smartish Pace, Atlanta Review, WSCLM (I'm not sure if the actual name will be something else, but it's a new Literary Magazine at Western State College in Gunnison), New Delta Review, Crab Orchard Review, Vox, Rattapallax, Ontario Review, Elixir, Two Rivers Review, Gargoyle, Many Mountains Moving, Louisville Review, Hudson Review, Pleiades, Southern Poetry Review, Hunger Mountain, Rattle, Florida Review, and Connecticut Review.

Speaking of all these stats, do you use Jeff Bahr's Submission Response Time Database? Have you submitted your own journal response data to it? If not, contact him. That tool is valuable and becomes even more so as more poets contribute to it. It's easy to do!

Meow meow meow

I like to lick plastic bags
No one knows why
I don't think I know why

I wake Uncle Steven up in the morning, every morning
for no good reason
Meow, I say, and then
BONK with my head

Occasionally when he rubs my belly
which I love
I will suddenly decide
I am very scared
and latch onto his entire forearm

All I want to do during the winter
is crawl under the comforter on his bed
All I want to do during the summer
is lie in the closet
and occasionally melt
into a dark puddle on the living room floor

My favorite hobby is
digging litter

Meow meow meow

All cats and all cat owners
are insane