from the virginia quarterly review's blog:
This was supposed to be a blog entry about how authors submit poetry to us covering clichéd topics that there’s just no way we’re going to print. But then I did the math, calculating the percentage of our submissions and published work that contain any of a dozen mainstays of poetic terminology, and found that precisely the opposite is true.
.........submitted.........published
water....19.9% .............24.8%
death....14.1%.............15.2%
blood.....11.7%.............13.8%
stone....11.1%..............16.0%
bone......9.1%...............7.8%
poetry....7.6%...............10.3%
heart......7.5%...............6.7%
fish........7.0%...............5.3%
birth.......5.5%...............7.4%
darkness..3.9%..............17.0%
rust....... 3.3%.............. 2.5%
cat.........2.3%.............. 2.8%
As it turns out, our editor is all about those dreaded paeans to cats. The moral of the story is that talent transcends topic, I suppose; in the hands of a skilled poet, even stone/bone can be made a vital couplet again.
http://www.vqronline.org/blog/2008/03/14/vital-cliches/
This was supposed to be a blog entry about how authors submit poetry to us covering clichéd topics that there’s just no way we’re going to print. But then I did the math, calculating the percentage of our submissions and published work that contain any of a dozen mainstays of poetic terminology, and found that precisely the opposite is true.
.........submitted.........published
water....19.9% .............24.8%
death....14.1%.............15.2%
blood.....11.7%.............13.8%
stone....11.1%..............16.0%
bone......9.1%...............7.8%
poetry....7.6%...............10.3%
heart......7.5%...............6.7%
fish........7.0%...............5.3%
birth.......5.5%...............7.4%
darkness..3.9%..............17.0%
rust....... 3.3%.............. 2.5%
cat.........2.3%.............. 2.8%
As it turns out, our editor is all about those dreaded paeans to cats. The moral of the story is that talent transcends topic, I suppose; in the hands of a skilled poet, even stone/bone can be made a vital couplet again.
http://www.vqronline.org/blog/2008/03/14/vital-cliches/