Six Questions for Editor, H.O.D. (A Handful of Dust)

H.O.D. publishes gritty literary poetry and artwork. Read the complete guidelines here.


SQF: What are the top three things you look for in a poem and why?

HOD:

1. The top thing for me is wholeness. Does the poem seem complete? A lot of rejections come from not feeling full after reading.
2. Theme/Topic/Tone. This probably ties #1 as most important. I really like at least a little bit of darkness (even black humor) in what I'm considering.
3. Concrete images. Too many times I've felt let down by a good poem that leaves me searching for a static sense of the action/scene.

SQF: What are the top three reasons a poem is rejected, other than not fitting into your answers to question one and why?

HOD:

1. Poems sent by attachment that sometimes go on forever without action/point or exhibit forced rhyme. Rhyme has to be carefully deployed, and I've rejected a few quality "ideas" because of rhyme ruining what was supposed to be a poem.
2. Poems sent by attachment that don't have some kind of grit to it. Relationship poems aren't of use to me if the chick ain't bleeding or the a-hole ain't dying.
3. Poems sent by attachment. Really. I have never asked for attachments. In fact, I say NO ATTACHMENTS in every CFS, but I still get a lot of writing sent as an attachment.

SQF: What other mistakes do you encounter that turn you off to a poem?

HOD:

Lightening v. Lightning.
Its/It's v. It's/Its.
Random capitalization/punctuation
That makes. LITTLE, or No Sense.

If you're going to do blank verse (punctuation-wise), don't stop using your commas and periods halfway through and start chucking them back in, only to stop by the end. It's kind of picky, but a lack of grammatical consistency does cause rejection now and then.


SQF: What is the best part of being an editor?

HOD: I critique one poem (or more) from each rejected submission, so it feels like I'm in a workshop. The best part is that I see some of my own mistakes in the mistakes of others' work. So, when I'm rejecting X's poem for being a little too short on details to feel satisfactory, I'm instantly thinking of one of my pieces I need to fix for the same reason.


SQF: I read a comment by one editor who said she keeps a blacklist of authors who respond to a rejection in a less than professional manner. I'm sure you know what I mean. What do you want authors to know about the stories you reject and how authors should respond? Along this same idea, do you mind if authors reply with polite questions about the comments they receive?

HOD: Polite replies to rejection, which I have gotten often because of my personal critiques, are something I love. They keep me going.

Have I gotten some less than professional replies? Yes.

Twice.

(Not that I'm counting.)

Are they on a blacklist? No. If they submit something great, I'd probably bite.


SQF: What one question on this topic do you wish I'd asked that I didn't? And how would you answer it?

HOD: I see that you accept short-short-short fiction. What does that mean?

I'm looking for prose poetry and micro-fiction. 200 words or less. Nice, neat, and not a scene filled with dialogue. I keep getting regular formula stories that could never work with the journal's adopted format. Which is a bummer.

Thanks again for your hard work, Mr. Harrington.

Thank you. We all appreciate you taking time from your busy schedule to participate in this project.

NEXT POST: 1/23--Six Questions for Josh and Jane, Editors, TheNewerYork!