One Night Stanzas

One of the most important components of any submission is the cover letter - whether you’re sending a quickly-rattled-off haiku to a low-fi magazine, submitting your best four works to a respected literary journal or posting off a hard-wrought manuscript to a potential publisher. A decent cover letter can make the difference between acceptance and rejection, and because it’s generally the first thing the editor, agent or contest judge sees, it can even make or break the chances of your poems being read at all. The cover letter is a blank canvas upon which you can paint a picture of yourself to your new editor, collaborator, agent or publisher - it’s your chance to show them a little of the personality behind the poems, to tell them you’re different from the million other wannabe poets whose emails they’ve received this week. In short, the cover letter is a powerful tool, and yet a huge number of poets fail to use it to its full potential - in fact, many people just don’t bother with cover letters at all.
Now, you may well be one of the lucky few who has realised the potential of the letter and got your method of composition down to a fine art. But if you’re not, you’re probably wondering exactly how you can make more of this useful writerly tool. Well, as always, I’m here to help, with a few pointers to get you well on the way to writing the cover letter that could change your life!

1: Be yourself.
This is the #1 rule when it comes to doing just about anything that involves poetry. Poetry is such a personal thing - it comes from a sincere place, and so should the covering letter that accompanies it. So don’t show off and big yourself up in your letter if you’re actually a shy and retiring wallflower, for example - if your reader is worth their salt, they’ll be able to sense something fishy. If you’re submitting for the first time ever and you’re unsure about things, say so! Editors are all human beings too (as far as I know!) and chances are, they probably felt the same as you once upon a time. OK, so saying “I’m not sure if this is right or not!” might sound feckless - and some stony recipients may take the opportunity to roll their eyes at your expense - but it’s much better than trying to pretend you’re totally au fait with everything when you’re not.

2: Be polite.
This may seem like a total no-brainer, and it really ought to go without saying, but you’d be shocked by the number of downright rude cover letters that land in my mailbox every month. Comments that could be perceived as rude range from the self-depricating (”I expect you’ll probably decide that your magazine’s too good for my stuff”) to the plain offensive (”if you reject my poems then f**k you” — a line which crops up with alarming regularity).
A lot of these comments are probably intended to be tongue-in-cheek, but when all you have to go by is an email, it can be hard to read “f**k you” as anything other than offensive. Basically, there’s nothing more effective than rudeness when it comes to making an editor instantly think ‘reject!’, and for this reason, it’s best to keep any wisecracks to a minimum!

3: Don’t criticise your recipient.
Basically, whilst you are by no means required to agree with every rule in a particular magazine’s submission gidelines, or to accept everything a particular publisher stands for, if you want to have your work accepted, it’s probably best to keep your misgivings to yourself. Saying “the way you do X is kind of lame” will not do you any favours - OK, so a good editor shouldn’t let it sway their decision, but it may well sour their mood… right when they’re about to read your poems! For example, when Read This started up, we got a submission from a guy whose cover letter included the line “by the way guys, your website looks kind of amateurish and the colours hurt to look at.” He was probably trying to be helpful, but it made us all a bit upset and annoyed - we’d just spent a load of time and money getting online, after all! When it came to looking at the guy’s work, we were just unable to get warmed up to discussing it. Being impartial is tricky when your first impression of someone is that they’re potentially hostile to what you’re doing!

4: Avoid grandiose statements.
OK, this is my particular pet hate, and I see it all the time. It ties in with what I said in point one about being dishonest and showing off - there’s nothing worse than a cover letter that’s full of ego! Some perfect examples: “my work has featured in over 200 literary publications worldwide” (sorry, but my immediate response is ’so why haven’t I heard of you?’) and “I have around 700 poems to my name” (being prolific doesn’t make an editor more likely to publish you). Sound like any of your cover letters?
It’s easy to fall into the trap of bigging yourself up, because of course you want to make as good an impression as possible. But rather than the sweeping grandiose statements (which can make you look like an egomaniac, or even a bit of a fibber), try being more specific. If you’ve been published in a load of zines, name three or four of the more ‘respected’ ones - or, if you don’t know which are the ‘respected’ ones, just name the most recent - that way, instead of thinking “so why haven’t I heard of you?” the editor is more likely to think “I know that zine - this person must be good!” And rather than stating exactly how many poems you’ve ever written (700 may be a huge achievement for you, but to a stranger it’s just a number), again, try to be more specific. Let the editor know why you write such a lot - say “I write as often as possible so I can keep growing as a poet,” or “I’ve written a lot of poems about cultural identity, because I feel strongly about it.” Both these statements will make the person at the other end of your submission letter/email much more interested in you, and they also avoid the arrogance factor! It all comes back to point one really… be yourself!

5: Your poems are written with care - your cover letter should be, too!
So that means checking for spelling errors and typos, and writing in full words and sentences. Not all magazines expect you to do the hyper-formal, with-kind-regards-yours-sincerely stuff, but I’d say that 99.9% of magazine staff would be put off by “here r sum poems 4u guys.” It might turn out to be unmerited, but a badly-worded or lazily-spelled cover letter could lead to some doubt about your abilities as a poet!

6: Sign your name.
This is another no-brainer, but Read This constantly receives submissions from John and Jane Does who provide NO clues about their identity! I mean, this isn’t a major issue, buit it does make for rather awkward replying (”Dear anonymous poet”?). We’ve also had submissions from people who have only supplied “screen names” (see How To Find Yourself A Good Pen Name), and even one person who, crazily, wrote a perfectly good cover letter but signed it “who wants to know?” WHAT?!
Basically, just give the editor something to go on. As the pen name article explains, you don’t have to use your real name - just provide something half-sensible that your recipient can use to refer to you… and always make sure you provide a working email address or correct mailing address for replies.

Ever received a cover letter, or proof-read one for a friend, that you think deserves a mention? Was it unbelievably impressive or heinously bad? Do you have any cover letter crimes that you want to own up to?

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