“It is completely natural not to like something, since not to like it is, as Maria Tsvetaeva says, 'not to recognize it, not to find the pre-cognized in it: the first cause of not accepting a work is not being prepared for it.' And it’s difficult to recognize something you haven’t encountered before. Power structures, literary ones included, have trouble making out what’s written in a language different from the one they speak." |
Daniel Carden Nemo, Editor-in-Chief
A while back, Virginia Woolf warned that the literary gatekeepers of her day clung too dearly to inherited forms to recognize genuine innovation, that they looked for the semblance of known shapes only to declare them formless when new shapes came along. “Odd how the creative power at once brings the whole universe to order,” she mused.
Reading modern poetry journals now, it is absolutely baffling how little has changed. Left-field, unconventional material still gets rejected because it can’t be recognized. By and large, it appears invisible or meaningless to the orthodox eye, dismissed as nonsense simply because it doesn’t sound like something one is used to. And since most editors expect the world to arrive pre-ordered in familiar ways, they see innovative work as disorderly, chaotic. As wrong.
The situation, as far as I can tell, amounts to an agent of normalization at the helm trimming off the jagged edges of incoming art so it fits the preapproved spaces of the magazine or press. The inner necessity of a poem, its hearkening to an unknown call, is lost on a rather impressive number of editors, who size it up largely by external criteria. (Remember Emily Dickinson, one of the greatest American poets, spent her life in obscurity mainly because, at the time, editors couldn’t make sense of her originality and deemed her work “too unconventional.” As was indeed the case with most groundbreaking artists. Van Gogh’s brilliance, likewise, was too pure for the normal standards—so they effectively killed him by dismissing him as insane. And Franz Kafka had so little success being understood by the literary institutions of his time that his last wish was to destroy everything he’d written.)
Why do most editors misjudge new work? For what it’s worth, it is completely natural not to like something, since not to like it is, as Maria Tsvetaeva says, “not to recognize it, not to find the pre-cognized in it: the first cause of not accepting a work is not being prepared for it.” And it’s difficult to recognize something you haven’t encountered before. Power structures, literary ones included, have trouble making out what’s written in a language different from the one they speak. Rare, unhackneyed work usually arrives in Gilles Deleuze’s “minor language,” a mode of expression the mainstream has not yet learned, and so a revolutionary writer may be kept waiting at the door their whole life in vain, same as in Kafka’s “Before the Law.”
Reading modern poetry journals now, it is absolutely baffling how little has changed. Left-field, unconventional material still gets rejected because it can’t be recognized. By and large, it appears invisible or meaningless to the orthodox eye, dismissed as nonsense simply because it doesn’t sound like something one is used to. And since most editors expect the world to arrive pre-ordered in familiar ways, they see innovative work as disorderly, chaotic. As wrong.
The situation, as far as I can tell, amounts to an agent of normalization at the helm trimming off the jagged edges of incoming art so it fits the preapproved spaces of the magazine or press. The inner necessity of a poem, its hearkening to an unknown call, is lost on a rather impressive number of editors, who size it up largely by external criteria. (Remember Emily Dickinson, one of the greatest American poets, spent her life in obscurity mainly because, at the time, editors couldn’t make sense of her originality and deemed her work “too unconventional.” As was indeed the case with most groundbreaking artists. Van Gogh’s brilliance, likewise, was too pure for the normal standards—so they effectively killed him by dismissing him as insane. And Franz Kafka had so little success being understood by the literary institutions of his time that his last wish was to destroy everything he’d written.)
Why do most editors misjudge new work? For what it’s worth, it is completely natural not to like something, since not to like it is, as Maria Tsvetaeva says, “not to recognize it, not to find the pre-cognized in it: the first cause of not accepting a work is not being prepared for it.” And it’s difficult to recognize something you haven’t encountered before. Power structures, literary ones included, have trouble making out what’s written in a language different from the one they speak. Rare, unhackneyed work usually arrives in Gilles Deleuze’s “minor language,” a mode of expression the mainstream has not yet learned, and so a revolutionary writer may be kept waiting at the door their whole life in vain, same as in Kafka’s “Before the Law.”
The term minor as applied by Deleuze to literature refers to great experimental work, disruptive, pioneering, unique, untested, progressive work that operates in a minor key, part of a major language but pushing against its grain. It is literature as high-wire act, as revolution from within, to an extent.
Of course such writing is difficult to read for those invested in “major” literature, in the familiar and the normal. To the establishment, it is deliberately and desperately incomprehensible. What does power do with the incomprehensible? Usually, it either ignores or crushes it. Most editors won’t go as far as crushing anything but they do have one tool at their disposal: simply choosing not to publish it.
The fact is that most lit mags and presses are simply unable to identify new, exceptional work. Editors, assuming their vantage point is central, inadvertently become the measure of all art. Over time, the aura of small power they possess leads them to think that, because they occupy the judge’s seat, their judgment is by definition sound, something which without fail leads to the mute syllogism that sees the very tendency institutionalized. The safest and easiest strategy for any editorial staff, down to the interns or volunteers trained to find work that fits, is to get rid of the weird and the difficult, of whatever can’t be put in a box. That is to say, the system is designed to detect and remove the uncommon, just as antibodies attack foreign cells to neutralize a threat.
I have personally tried for years to publish work that doesn’t conform to MFA “standards” and pre-established literary conventions, mostly unsuccessfully, and, recently, I’ve also tried my hand at testing the resistance of literary-world structures to AI writing, with some really worrying results.
There are plenty of us these days who aren’t exactly censored, but we might as well be invisible, thanks to editorial indifference. One thing is certain, though: in literature, in art in general, as in life, truth doesn’t always come out. And maybe the time has come to revive that elemental uncertainty of art. Because through art, especially through poetry, one ought to feel lost and vulnerable at times, as that’s evidence the art is doing something new. Why not, in the spirit of Sontag’s call for an “erotics of art,” start paying attention to new signs of life and ask, Does this trigger me in some shape or form, spark my imagination, even if it evades my understanding? Why not start learning to speak other languages rather than expect everyone to speak ours?
Of course such writing is difficult to read for those invested in “major” literature, in the familiar and the normal. To the establishment, it is deliberately and desperately incomprehensible. What does power do with the incomprehensible? Usually, it either ignores or crushes it. Most editors won’t go as far as crushing anything but they do have one tool at their disposal: simply choosing not to publish it.
The fact is that most lit mags and presses are simply unable to identify new, exceptional work. Editors, assuming their vantage point is central, inadvertently become the measure of all art. Over time, the aura of small power they possess leads them to think that, because they occupy the judge’s seat, their judgment is by definition sound, something which without fail leads to the mute syllogism that sees the very tendency institutionalized. The safest and easiest strategy for any editorial staff, down to the interns or volunteers trained to find work that fits, is to get rid of the weird and the difficult, of whatever can’t be put in a box. That is to say, the system is designed to detect and remove the uncommon, just as antibodies attack foreign cells to neutralize a threat.
I have personally tried for years to publish work that doesn’t conform to MFA “standards” and pre-established literary conventions, mostly unsuccessfully, and, recently, I’ve also tried my hand at testing the resistance of literary-world structures to AI writing, with some really worrying results.
There are plenty of us these days who aren’t exactly censored, but we might as well be invisible, thanks to editorial indifference. One thing is certain, though: in literature, in art in general, as in life, truth doesn’t always come out. And maybe the time has come to revive that elemental uncertainty of art. Because through art, especially through poetry, one ought to feel lost and vulnerable at times, as that’s evidence the art is doing something new. Why not, in the spirit of Sontag’s call for an “erotics of art,” start paying attention to new signs of life and ask, Does this trigger me in some shape or form, spark my imagination, even if it evades my understanding? Why not start learning to speak other languages rather than expect everyone to speak ours?
Photo by Daniel Carden Nemo
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Daniel Carden Nemo is a writer, poet, and translator. His work has been longlisted for the Best Literary Translations (Deep Vellum) and has appeared or is forthcoming in The Common, Atlanta Review, RHINO, Full Stop, Magma Poetry, Sontag Mag, Exchanges, and elsewhere. For more, go to danielnemo.com
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