Behind the scenes at The Great Paris Review Poetry Purge of 2010, part 6: Anna George Meek, “Purgerati.”

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

Meet Anna George Meek. Readers of this space may have met her in the comments section of Michael Schiavo’s interview. I in turn quoted here, or I should say certainly would have quoted her, in a long-form expose story-type thing-piece.

Here’s a shocker, at least for this writer: Meek doesn’t have a website; perhaps she doesn’t have to because she is already world wide live. Her first book, Acts of Contortion, won the 2002 Brittingham Prize from The University of Wisconsin Press. She is a freelance violinist in the Minneapolis-St. Paul. When she’s not playing or teaching aspiring violinists, she teaches at the Loft Literary Center as well.

Meek, like other “Purgerati,” as she calls her tribe, did not need to talk to me or name herself. With poems that have been published in Poetry, Kenyon Review, Yale Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, Crazyhorse, Massachusetts Review, Seneca Review, and Missouri Review, perhaps she’s not worrying so much about placing her un-accepted work, a poem she describes as a “two-pager, an anchor in the last section of one of my most recent manuscripts.”

Meek spoke to me over email yesterday.

Tell me about how your poem—it was a single poem, yes?—was accepted.

Meghan O’Rourke first wrote me to accept the poem on July 1, 2008.  Only the day before, my house had been robbed for the second time in eight days; I’d lost an heirloom that’s been in my family for 200 years, my engagement ring, my computer with all my documents and the Zip drive on which they’d all been backed up.

All of which is to say: it was welcome news.

Poets with their hard drives. Readers: stay safe out there, and back up your files.  OK, go on.  Sorry. Other than brightening up your day, any other reasons it was good news?

First, a poem I was proud of would appear in one of the nation’s top journals.  But also—knowing that the thieves had probably erased my hard drive in order to resell the computer—Paris Review had notified me that one of my poems still existed in some form somewhere in the universe.

That would have been strange: a poem accepted that you had no immediate access to, to read right away and try, as I’ve done lots of times, to see what they saw in the poem to compel them to publish it.

Both Meghan O’Rourke and Christopher Cox corresponded with me throughout 2009.  They sent me a copy of the poem—which I no longer had—and made good suggestions for minor revisions.  I enjoyed their notes, which were always smart and respectful and friendly.  One of the pleasures of being published in a journal is the sense that one is joining a community. Clearly, these are fine folk to be in fellowship with.

Ironically, despite un-acceptance and its two years in limbo, my poem is oddly better off for its editorial travels through the Paris Review.

Speaking of which: what was your reaction to the un-acceptance?

The email I got from [Lorin] Stein was identical to the one Michael Schiavo got, as posted in this article.

For a split second, I thought the email was a prank.

My next response was something sophisticated like, Well, poop.  I’ve been lucky enough to have many wonderful journals publish my work. I’ve also received dozens and dozens of polite rejections, and see them merely as part of the submission process. My self-esteem wasn’t hurt. But yes, I was shocked.

For two years, I’ve included Paris Review in my bio (“poems forthcoming in…”), and it was very strange to erase it.  As if I’d “un-friended” the journal. I still think well of Meghan and Chris.

Well, poop indeed. I heard a funny suggestion from someone, although it hasn’t turned up yet anyhere, which is that every writer now should include “poems forthcoming in The Paris Review” in their bio. On the one hand, this person tells me, it would dilute the brand of having a Paris Review credit, and on the other, who’s going to check?  I mean, even if it was true, you’re probably going to get purged from the pile the next poetry editor comes around. That’s one thing I find myself coming back to, and this isn’t specific to this year’s Purge: what is it with these poetry editors taking work years issues ahead of time? Sure, there are a lot of great poets writing a lot of superb poems, but one look at a recent Paris Review TOC would give one an idea of just how many poems the place takes.

Did you write Stein back at all?

I haven’t written Stein, and don’t plan to.  I’m sure he’s aware of the rumpus his email has begun, and I’ll put my energies elsewhere. And I don’t feel bitter, just sad.

So, like all news items, this Purge story is winding down into the analysis stage.  What is your take on it all, from where you sit?

I’ve been thinking a lot about why this move by Paris Review has the poetry world so kerfuffled.  This may be a repeat performance by the Review, but it’s nevertheless an unusual phenomenon in our world.

For the most part, American poets are not players in a high-stakes publishing game.  We tour on our own dimes, shake hands without agents or lawyers, have coffee, write warmly across distances. Disputes occur personally. I risk depicting poets too quaintly, I suppose, but relative to six-figure contracts and Hollywood options, we are a grassroots bunch. Half the time I publish in journals, no contract is ever involved. I didn’t yet have a contract with Paris Review; I had their word.

I am reminded by a paragraph from an essay by Hilary Masters, son of Edgar Lee Masters of Spoon River Anthology fame; he’s talking about the publishing world of his father:

I’ve always been struck by the similarity between machine politics I observed my grandmother manipulate as a work for the Pendergast organization in Kansas City and the kind of associations and trade-offs that occur in what is sometimes called “po-biz.” You-do-for-me-and-I-do-for-you is standard operating procedure for both institutions, and, the figure of an independent is regarded with suspicion in both of these precincts. An individual who has nothing to trade and no outstanding IOUs is never completely accepted and certainly never trusted.

That system of IOUs and back-scratching still exists, but then there’s those instances where one gets “the call,” an acceptance or prize from a place outside these po-biz precincts.  And as old-blue-blood-boy network as Paris Review was and remains, it is as about as close as a genuine call up from the minors a poet can get.

Poets don’t receive American Idolization.  Even though our community isn’t as tiny or as exiled as we sometimes whine, we do depend on ourselves for the value of the art and artistic community. Generally, we’re used to easy dismissal from four out of five dentists. But when one of our own clan violates poets’ good faith this casually, it’s stunning.

The email from Paris Review is small but big, and the news seems to be this: The word of the very fine Paris Review is retractable.  Each of us is one step closer to demanding legal binders.  Trust is naïve. This is not a community; it’s a business only. You can be voted off the island.

Conversely, many fellow writers in the Twin Cities steered me to your article when they heard of my email. I visited this blog several times before drumming up the courage to post; I highly doubt I’m the only Purgerati lurker. I don’t have the least desire to disparage the whole journal or the writers appearing in it; I hesitated to say anything at all. But in a way, your article has created some space for our weird little diaspora. Thanks, Dan, for making this dialogue possible. It’s the perfect antidote.

Thanks for offering your perspective, Anna George Meek, who shall inherit the earth now.  And thanks especially for the word “Purgerati.”