{"id":2048,"date":"2007-05-25T20:33:59","date_gmt":"2007-05-25T18:33:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sunpig.com\/mt-entry-2048.html"},"modified":"2014-01-19T22:23:20","modified_gmt":"2014-01-19T21:23:20","slug":"rejection-oh-the-tragedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/abi\/2007\/05\/25\/rejection-oh-the-tragedy\/","title":{"rendered":"Rejection! Oh, the tragedy!"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the end of January, at the urging of a few friends, I sent three sonnets off to Asimov’s<\/a>, the only science fiction magazine that accepts poetry. Unlike most of the sonnets I write, these were not “occasional” sonnets, written to mark a specific event or play off of a specific theme in a conversation.<\/p>\n

I got the rejection letter this week, a good month after Asimov’s own guidelines said to “assume the submission was lost”. Poetry is a chancy thing to publish, of course, and I’m not actually disappointed or annoyed in the least that I got knocked back. I regarded the entire submission process as being like throwing spaghetti at the wall, just to see if it stuck.<\/p>\n

So, since Asimov’s doesn’t want them, I thought I’d publish the three of them here. Each is structured as a 14-line SF narrative, basically a short story in iambic pentameter. I had a lot of fun writing them – even managed to recycle a story idea that never jelled into one.<\/p>\n

Principal Damage<\/h2>\n

The cloning table holds me half-reclined
\nAnd wraps the scanning visor round my head,
\nRecording me. I try to clear my mind,
\nBut grief remains. My alter self is dead.
\nA roadside bomb went off; his whole squad died.
\nLike all the other soldiers grown before
\nFrom memories and tissue I’ve supplied,
\nHe died. As will the next, and many more.
\nI knew that he was gone before the call —
\nI felt<\/em> the bomb explode, and tasted blood.
\nI can’t explain, but I’ve died with them all,
\nBeen burned and shot, been stabbed and drowned in mud.
\nSometimes I wish that I were just a clone
\nSo when I die, I die just once, alone.<\/p>\n

I blame John Scalzi<\/a> for this one, since he’s the one that got me into the “civilians turn soldiers in SFnial wars” mindset, years after the imprint of Starship Troopers<\/em> was finally ironed out of my skull. Though Ursula K LeGuin<\/a>‘s story Nine Lives<\/em> is a piece of it, too, with the notion of some mystical connection among clones that activates on death.<\/p>\n

Some Minor Alterations<\/h2>\n

At glum fifteen, I met myself at thirty.
\nI was an awkward kid, and couldn’t see
\nA future that would suit someone like me.
\nI wanted to be normal, not so nerdy.
\nShe brought me pictures: husband (somewhat bland),
\nCute children, pleasant house, a life in full.
\nThe photos made it all seem possible,
\nAnd, suddenly, too dull for me to stand.
\nMy fears of growing into her inspire
\nMe through the days I spend on my research,
\nInventing this machine. I plan to search
\nThrough time for the excitement I require.
\nAnd my first trip? To tell a lie, and thus
\nSteer my past self toward the truth of us.<\/p>\n

The scansion on this one is iffy, but it was fun. It’s an attempt to resolve the time-travel paradox on one of my favourite wishes (that I could go back in time to my teenaged self and tell her it would all be OK in the end).<\/p>\n

Nothing in this poem should be an indictment of my current life, by the way.<\/p>\n

Immigrant<\/h2>\n

The branching universes take me far
\nBeyond my devastated world, to one
\nWhere Earth revolves around a living<\/em> star.
\nI find my other self. She doesn’t run.
\nI do the thing, and hide the body well,
\nAnd then go home. The keys are in her coat.
\nThe house is nicer here — mine’s just a shell —
\nBut on the mantelpiece, I find a note.
\nIf you are reading this, I must be dead.<\/em>
\nBut that’s OK. I hope you made it fast.<\/em>
\nJust know you’re not the first to come instead<\/em>
\nOf staying home. Nor will you be the last.<\/em>
\nEnjoy this respite from whatever hell<\/em>
\nYou’ve just escaped, and in your turn, die well.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is recycled from a story that just never worked out about fifteen years ago. It’s based a lot on Larry Niven’s All the Myriad Ways<\/em>, gone a bit dark. One of my readers cited The Golden Bough<\/a> in reference to it as well, though if that is an influence it’s filtered through the culture (I have never read it).<\/p>\n

So my quest to become a published poet is thwarted, thwarted, I tell you! And I’m not really gutted. I hope the narrative sonnets are at least interesting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the end of January, at the urging of a few friends, I sent three sonnets off to Asimov’s, the only science fiction magazine that accepts poetry. Unlike most of the sonnets I write, these were not “occasional” sonnets, written to mark a specific event or play off of a specific theme in a conversation. … Continue reading Rejection! Oh, the tragedy!<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[138],"tags":[1747,1746,1748],"class_list":["post-2048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sonnets","tag-alternate-worlds","tag-cloning","tag-time-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/abi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/abi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/abi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/abi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/abi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2048"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/abi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2048\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2918,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/abi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2048\/revisions\/2918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/abi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/abi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/abi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}