A Sunday Thought

It happens this way …

It’s taken me decades to understand that when my poems are rejected by a publication, I shouldn’t take it personally. I’ve learned to breathe deeply, take a quick look at the work to see if I need to make any changes, and then send it out again right away. That keeps my energy flowing and hope alive. As Billy Collins reminds me, “Writing is an act of hope, the hope someone will read it.”

Last week I sent five poems to Indie Blu(e) Publishing for their upcoming anthology on love. Their response:

We really like your work and want as much of it as possible in [our] Anthology …. Thank you so much and for being a tent-pole poet (one who holds up the tent with the strength of their work).

This kind of comment is so rare and so precious. I never heard of “a tent-pole poet” before. But it made me think about how we can be a tent pole in other areas of life.

How do we hold up the tent of relationships with the strength of our love, our words, our encouragement? How do we hold up the tent of hope by not succumbing to the discouraging news of the day? How do we hold up the tent of joy so that we  fill our corner of the world with brightness?

No answers today. Only questions I’m pondering.