Behind the scenes at The Great Paris Review Poetry Purge of 2010, part 3: Joshua Corey, “Rejectorino.”

Before the Purge: Joshua Corey, Arena, Wisconsin, "a couple of weeks ago."

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | extras

Introducing one of the 20, and counting, Purged Poets of Paris Review.  His name is Joshua Corey, author of three prize-winning books of poems, champion poetry blogger, and assistant professor of English at Lake Forest College. When I found out that Joshua Corey was one of those affected by this whole affair, I didn’t believe it—Corey, after all, has been in all the major poetry journals, he is lucid in his critical prose.

It made sense his work was accepted, in the same sense one sees someone’s work in  The New Yorker—that person has made it, as it were, to one of the top journals.

Take us back to the time your work was accepted from Paris Review. What was your reaction—was it different than your usual accepted work feeling or akin to other journal acceptances? You’ve been published in so many super places; how did a Paris Review rank?

Dan Chiasson—who is a mensch-y guy and deserves no blame for what’s happened—got in touch with me and asked to see some poems. I sent him a packet of four or so, and after a few days he emailed to say that he really liked one called “Failed Sestina for My Daughter” and was going to pass it along to [Philip] Gourevitch.

As I wrote to Dan in the wake of the acceptance, my reaction was “girlish excitement.” I’m reasonably blasé about journal publications these days, and the publication credits I’m proudest of are from magazines like Aufgabe, Denver Quarterly, Conjunctions—publications that stress innovative writing. But The Paris Review is such a storied journal, which even my family and non-literary friends have heard of, and it impressed the folks where I work, too. It felt like kind of a big deal.

And it seemed possible that Dan and Meghan O’Rourke were embarked on a mission to make the magazine’s poetry selection more diverse and relevant than it’s been for a long time, and that I might have some small part in that.

The poem is a bit of an outlier in my recent writing, which lately has been pushing in more surreal and visceral directions. It’s perhaps the only one of my recent attempts to write about parenthood that I think has been at all successful.

Tell me about the time in between acceptance and now.  How long had it been when you received your email—it was an email, yes—from Lorin Stein?  Did you hear from the Paris Review or inquire about your work as this time went on?

Let’s see. Dan wrote that they were taking the poem in mid-December 2009, and the email confirming acceptance from from one of their interns [actually a senior editor-ed.], Christopher Cox, came in January 2010. Not too long after that I got another email from Cox, who gave me the details: the poem would likely appear in the Summer 2011 issue, I’d be paid a modest amount for it, and I’d receive galleys and a contract (there’s the rub) shortly before publication.

Then I didn’t have any other contact with Dan or Christopher until Stein wrote with his de-acceptance this past Friday.

So, yes, the de-acceptance.  What was your reaction?  Did you respond to Lorin Stein?

Ordinary rejections don’t bother me, and I never complain about them. I’ve been extremely fortunate to publish in as many places as I have. But this felt personal in its impersonality, if you follow me—like I was being declared an un-poet or an un-person. It struck me as an extremely unwise and unprofessional solution to a problem that the editors themselves had created, and I said so. So yes, I was quite angry about it.

Stein did write back briefly and apologetically, saying something to the effect that he wasn’t happy about the decision but that it was the best solution they could come up with. Pretty weak stuff.

I’ve been editing journals for 20 of my 42 years, and I’ve never heard of the de-acceptance letter in literary journal circles. Do you agree with that classification, or have another take on this matter, or have any comment specific to how Paris Review handled this?  Could you envision a situation where you would think this was an acceptable way to handle things?

My wife, who used to work in Big New York Publishing, reminds me that this is a common practice in the book world, which is where Stein is coming from: one editor leaves, another editor is hired, and those accepted authors who have not actually been given contracts are given the heave-ho. The idea is to give the new editor some creative latitude.

But I’ve never heard of a literary journal doing this. Partly it’s because, as you’ve suggested in some of your writing about this affair, journals operate on a different, primarily non-monetary, basis than book publishers. The book authors who are de-accepted are at least, I imagine, offered kill fees and the practice is accepted as part of the price of doing business.

But is this the sort of business a literary journal ought to be in?

I don’t know. I thought of some alternatives to this, and it all seems rather lame.

It seems to me that they could have been more creative about this. They’ve got a website – the poems could have been placed in a web-only feature. I’d still be disappointed about not being in the print journal, but it wouldn’t be as galling as having one’s acceptance rescinded. And what about that kill fee? Not that the money would make me feel better, but it would recast the whole episode as an economic transaction and dispel any illusions one might have about an editor honorably serving the interests of the writers they work with.

A kill fee for a poem.  Funny—that reminds me of the Martin Amis short story [I think it's "Career Move," from Heavy Water] where the worlds of poets and screenwriters are revered in a bizarre way.  So if I were to put this into a nutshell: you know how big of a deal getting accepted by Paris Review, and then you know how bizarre it was to be de-accepted?

Lorin Stein has been hired to “relaunch” the magazine, and that’s all to the good. My perception from a distance of The Paris Review is that it’s been coasting for some time on a reputation earned in the Fifties and Sixties. But I don’t have a lot of confidence in the magazine’s new direction, judging from flippant comments Stein has made in the media, the fact that neither he nor the new poetry editor are creative writers, and the fact that—not to speak of my own work—I know how strong and exciting the writing of the other “Rejecterinos” can be.

I like Rejecterinos. I should have thought of that. Shit.  De-accepterinos.  Or a new metal band: The Unaccepted.

If Stein had de-accepted everything on the magazine’s docket, and not retained Dan Chiasson and Meghan O’Rourke—albeit in lesser capacities than they previously had—I’d still feel insulted. But I couldn’t accuse him of acting in bad faith.

Not too long ago on my blog, I wrote that young writers shouldn’t put too much faith in institutions; that goes for this not-so-young writer as well. This experience will move me even further in the direction I was already headed, toward placing my trust in peers and comrades in the field of innovative writing to create forums for the circulation of exciting work – with new magazines, Web zines, reading series, etc.

I’ll still make use of institutions where appropriate, but I’m going to be more vigilant about the ways in which they try to use me.