A Rejection Letter

Dear Mr. Parker,

First and foremost, I would like to thank you for submitting what you ,ever so humbly, refer to as your magnum opus. We are honoured that you decided to submit samples from your masterpiece to us; and not, I quote, any of a dime-a-dozen small publishing houses specializing in sustainable living, spirituality, wild flowers, hemp clothing and the Canadian immigrant experience. Unfortunately, we will not be able to publish it as the work does not meet our guidelines and requirements.

Who am I kidding ? It stinks. It stinks so bad that I feel very strongly that it deserves a personalized rejection letter. A form letter would just not do as I would really like to 'nip the evil in the bud' where the evil in question is your rather misplaced faith in your inner writer. I will be doing my fellow editors a big favour by sparing them the torture of having to read through the mounds of drivel, that I am sure, you are capable of churning out in abundance.

Where to start ? The pomposity is evident from the title itself - A Book Of Wisdom for the 21st Century. It is rather presumptuous of you to think of the problems that the book-store managers would face upon its publication (What to do with the many tons of conventional wisdom that will rot in warehouses once this is out ?) but we are all entitled to daydream, so I will let that one pass.

Let us move on to the actual content.

While I do see a very faint semblance of something remotely workable in a few of the quotations you have dreamed up (A man is known by the bookmarks in his web browser. Never trust a man who sells value-added services.); I do need to remind you that these become quotations only when these are quoted (repeatedly) by people other than YOU. As they stand, these are merely grammatically correct sentences that are being rejected by an editor as being unworthy of publication. I would certainly not be as charitable about the rest of the duds in that section.(Uneasy lies the crotch that wears a pager. Every barber is a Dalai Lama.)

No publisher in their right mind would want to open themselves to libel by accepting such tasteless limericks that you would like to pass on as some sort of aphorisms for the trademark-laden digital age :

Blackberry^TM wielding man of power,

twiddled his thumb in the shower,

for the stress from vibration

and years of radiation

had reduced to a stub 'twas once a tower

My Powerpoint^TM presentation,

received a standing ovation,

the crowd on Atkins Diet^TM

sat through all quiet

on the subject of constipation

Granted, the nonsensical limerick form is difficult to criticize and I can see how you may be naturally attracted to it but even a nonsense poem must, at the very least, have some artistic merit or redeeming quality. Your limericks have none. Sure, if I were to dissect one, there is rhyme and if I can stretch the standards a bit, there is reason; but as a whole, I find no rhyme or reason to publish such puerilities.

What I find the most upsetting, however, is your attempt at hijacking the haiku. You have taken what is a sublime poetic form and turned it into just another container for your trash. Basho and Issa would, no doubt, be turning in their graves at the travesty you unleash in these ditties :

setting sun –

commuter swears,

whither goddamn sunglasses

a cardinal sin -

to ogle neighbour’s wife

or to Google her

I suggest that you continue to publish this balderdash on your own blog and force feed it to the few friends that you might have. If you would really like to see it in print, I suggest buying a printer and making a few copies for bathroom-reading which is about the only genre I can place this in.

There are a million other meaningful pursuits that one could follow in life other than writing and I wish you success in any one of them.

Regards,

Anna Biting-Critic

Chief Editor, Lowest Rung,

High-Brow Publishing House