I recently received a letter that you un-accepted my poems "Villianelle for My Pit Bull (who Died)" and "Rallying Against Feminism While the Moon is Full." I didn't quite understand what that meant until I talked to two other poets, JC and DN, who told me at first it might be a joke, that they didn't receive a letter and there was nothing to worry about.
As you know, they, too, soon received letters. Like me, at the time JC and DN were both dressed in their finest tuxedos, nervously standing at the mailbox waiting for the big day to arrive, for the mail carrier to grandly march up the walk, and to see our names joined for eternity with the name Paris Review splashed across the cover of the latest issue. Instead, the mail carrier grimly handed us a letter with black borders. "I'm so, so sorry," she said as she turned and walked sadly away. What could this be? Where was the issue that we had all dreamed was forthcoming? Our fingers trembled as we tore open the envelope. "It's not you, it's me," the letter read.
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