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I have to work today, Good Friday. I wish I didn’t–it seems crass to go about business as usual, working, laughing, etc. But I will be worshiping in my heart, mourning who I was and am and rejoicing in what God did for such an undeserving one as me. I hope you will, too.
Isaiah 53
Who has believed what he has heard from us?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
For he grew up before him like a young plant,
and like a root out of dry ground;
he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
and no beauty that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by men;
a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he opened not his mouth.
By oppression and judgment he was taken away;
and as for his generation, who considered
that he was cut off out of the land of the living,
stricken for the transgression of my people?
And they made his grave with the wicked
and with a rich man in his death,
although he had done no violence,
and there was no deceit in his mouth.
Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him;
he has put him to grief;
when his soul makes an offering for guilt,
he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;
the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.
Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied;
by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,
make many to be accounted righteous,
and he shall bear their iniquities.
Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many,
and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,
because he poured out his soul to death
and was numbered with the transgressors;
yet he bore the sin of many,
and makes intercession for the transgressors.
Today I got a rejection notice from a journal to which I had submitted some poems. I wasn’t too surprised. For starters, rejection is the norm in poetry, especially early on. If you can’t handle a lot of, “We’re sorry, but . . ” well, its time to start working with stray puppies or something.
Furthermore, this particular journal is (or at least was) listed on Duotrope (a writer’s market resource) as one of the 25 Most Challenging Poetry Markets. The journals on this list typically accept two percent or less of all the material submitted to them. The odds weren’t with me.
Finally, I admit I didn’t send them my top drawer stuff, at least for the most part. One was a blatantly new poem I knew better than to send out without further revision. A couple were poems I had just solved some problems with, but which probably could have stood another few months of polishing. The remaining two, while truly finished, were probably just not a good fit for this journal, and I should have known that from reading the samples I read online.
I don’t feel bad, though. Sometimes it’s good to shop yourself out to the best just to see if you stand where you think you do. Never hurts. And, in addition to being challenging, this was also one of the fastest responding markets. They answered me in five days. Which means my work isn’t tied up for months at one place and I can submit it elsewhere.
Incidentally, those poems which I feel are my best unpublished work are presently out, simultaneously, to two upper-tier journals, one of which I believe is predisposed to my sort of writing. I’ll let you know how that goes.
Today’s news prompted me to go back and examine my submission success ratio. I learned that I have sent out nearly 50 poems to 20 markets for a total of 95 submitted poems. (Obviously, some poems are submitted to more than one market in all that.) I have had 11 published (not counting the one in my local newspaper). That’s a success ratio of about 11.5 percent.
I don’t know how that compares to other writers, but, as someone who has only been writing semi-seriously for 3.5 years and submitting for 2.5 years, I don’t think that’s too bad.
Of course, I would like, at the very least, to hold steady at 10% or so, but after looking at my (declining) output over the last couple years, I think the key, for me anyway, to maintaining a more or less continuing publishing presence is to “show up for work” more.
In light of that goal I therefore announce that I will be participating in this year’s National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo to those of us in the industry).
This is the poets’ version of National Novel Writing Month, in which the would-be novelist seeks to put 1000 or more words down a day and finish the month with 50,000 words– which is a pretty good start on a novel I’d guess. The point is volume. Turning off your inner “quality censor”. Just. Write. Something. What you end up with will, doubtless, not be entirely usable, but you will likely find the seeds of something in there that will become . . . solid. In other words, quantity is sometimes where quality hides out.
So over the next thirty days I will write a poem a day. Many will stink. But I have no doubt that I’ll come away with a handful of gems-to-be. Hope with me here, folks.
By the way, I probably won’t post many of these poems here, but I may post some. Keep an eye out.
Oh, and as for the 342. Numbers containing the digit three are always funnier; they just are. And if you don’t know the why behind the 42, you might as well just wrap a towel around your head.
I had Romans 8 in my daily devotions a few weeks back, and had cause to meditate on the portion about suffering in this life vs. the glory of the next. Eventually these thoughts led to a poem. Enjoy.
Glory Past Comparing
Consider, all who suffer;
let this your sorrows heal:
a glory past comparing
in us God will reveal.
This hope is our salvation;
His promise we believe
and with anticipation
await, though yet unseen.
Though now, with all of nature,
we groan beneath the curse,
be confident, enduring
these “pains of childbirth,”
for soon will our adoption
as God’s sons be complete.
O, happy realization—
our Savior we will meet!
Rejoice! Though now we suffer,
all sorrows God will heal,
and glory past comparing
in us He will reveal.
Rejoice; sing Alleluia!
Lift up your downcast face,
and to all those around you
declare His glorious grace.
We are created to be God- and others-centered beings.
~ Paul David Tripp (emphasis mine), at BCTC in Lafayette, IN Feb. 10, 2010.
For some reason, I get a really nice natural light on our porch on cloudy fall days. This was taken almost one year to the day after the one in my previous “Photo Update”.
Well, my time at Blogger was fun. They (along with a couple of Guru Brians I know) made it easy for a guy who knows nothing about websites to have one. And, for a while, everything was going swimmingly.
Then Blogger/Google decided to start hatin’ on the ftp users. Too bad– for Blogger anyway, but good for WordPress. While WordPress is foreign to me, it looks interesting, and may have more possibilites overall. But the important thing is that it will allow me to retain my own domain (mad rhyme!) and provide you, the audience, with a quality reading experience.
I still plan to continue a heavy herp emphasis, but expect to read more theology and poetry posts, and few to none on politics.
Here’s to new beginnings.
Always, and I mean ALWAYS, unplug your oven when installing a new bake element.
Always.
So it’s been about a year since I’ve posted here. Yes, I’ve been busy, but that’s no excuse. The good news is that some of that “busy” has been spent on herping and photography, and I’ve been able to add a modest number (10 to be exact) of species to the life list. I will provide a fully updated list in a later post, but but thought I might leave you with a photo essay (of sorts) of the additions.
Here they are, in order of appearance.
Plethodon dorsalis /Zig-Zag Salamander (Indiana)
Plethodon electromorphus /Ravine Salamander (Ohio)
 Hemidactylium scutatum /Four-toed Salamander (Ohio)  Trachemys scripta elegans /Red-eared Slider (Ohio)  Nerodia sipedon pleuralis /Midland Water Snake (Illinois)  Bufo americanus charlessmithi /Dwarf American Toad (Illinois)
Pantherophis (Elaphe) obsoletus /Black Rat Snake (Illinois)
Lampropeltis c. calligaster /Prairie King Snake (Illinois) 
Eumeces fasciatus /Five-lined Skink (Illinois)  Pantherophis (Elaphe) vulpinus /Eastern Fox Snake (Ohio) Not a huge haul of new stuff, but some of those (such as the skink, the Black Rat Snake, and the Fox Snake) were long overdue. Sort of like this post . . .
All were taken on my new camera, a Canon Powershot A720 IS. Click on the photos below for the unobstructed version.
 I think the biggest way my new camera has improved my picture taking has little to do with the camera itself. In researching cameras and, especially, reading the manual for my new Powershot, I have learned alot about photography in general, and playing with the manual and semi-manual settings has helped me understand how each affects the resulting image. Yeah, I might be the next Ansel Adams. We’ll see.
Hey Folks,
I thought it would be appropriate after the last few “downer” comments I’ve made to kind of give you “the rest of the story”. It was, in fact the day that I linked one of the articles on Sen. Obama’s (Dem., IL) positions, that I was immediately reminded of the prayer of Nehemiah. I have prayed it several time since, and quote it below for your encouragement.
And they said to me, “The remnant there in the province who had survived the exile is in great trouble and shame. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates are destroyed by fire.” As soon as I heard these words I sat down and wept and mourned for days, and I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven. And I said, “O Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, let your ear be attentive and your eyes open, to hear the prayer of your servant that I now pray before you day and night for the people of Israel your servants, confessing the sins of the people of Israel, which we have sinned against you. Even I and my father’s house have sinned. We have acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, and the rules that you commanded your servant Moses. Remember the word that you commanded your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples, but if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them, though your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there I will gather them and bring them to the place that I have chosen, to make my name dwell there.’ They are your servants and your people, whom you have redeemed by your great power and by your strong hand. O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant, and to the prayer of your servants who delight to fear your name, and give success to your servant today, and grant him mercy in the sight of [the king].”
Nehemiah 1:3-11a (ESV)
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