This poem was first published in the January, 2001 issue of Inscriptions Magazine.
The Writer (with apologies to Edgar Allen Poe)
By Mary Combrink ([email protected])
Once upon a midnight dreary, as I pondered, weak and weary
Over yet another query to some hostile editor.
My fingers ceased their tapping, and I closed my eyes, and napping,
Envisioned myself wrapping up this dream forevermore.
Put to rest this ceaseless yearning to be a writer evermore.
And I sighed out, "Nevermore!"
But I finished up my query, and with eyes all red and bleary,
I addressed the cursed query to that unseen editor.
The thing that I'd created, would it be seen and be hated?
I fretted and I waited for three months -- it seemed like more
Yes, the fearful, frightful waiting for three months or maybe more
And I gasped out, "Nevermore!"
At long last the letter came, my heart beat faster at my name
On the envelope I had enclosed to that young editor.
And I stood there, my knees shaking, and my stomach all a-quaking,
And I felt my heart a-breaking at the words that were in store
At the general form rejection that I knew was yet in store
And I cried out, "Nevermore!"
I hid behind a closed door, then I ripped and pulled and soon tore
Out the letter that was written by that blessed editor.
"We found your work delightful; it was smart, fun and insightful
You truly have a rightful place among our writers' corps.
Yes, we welcome you with joy into our gilded writers' corps."
And I sobbed out, "This is absolutely the happiest day of my life, better
even than having kids and I can't believe you picked me, ME!, of all people,
out of the slush pile, and I'll do anything, even take a piddly advance,
even give up all rights, just for the chance to see my work published
by a major publishing company and I'll never complain about the publishing process again.
Never, never, never ... "Nevermore."
�Mary Rachel Combrink, 2001. May not be reprinted without written consent of the author