Crunching Poetic Numbers

Jackie ♦ March 18, 2008 ♦ Leave a Comment

The Virginia Quarterly Review is a well-respected literary quarterly, but it seems they also have quite the literary funny bone.

Ever wonder what titles are most common in poetry these days? How about the most cliched topics that are actually still accepted? I don’t know about you, but I was very happy to see that none of my titles are on the first list, and I’m going to walk a very fine line when it comes to the second list. The blogger says he guesses it proves that “talent transcends topic,” which I would agree with, but this is certainly a funny example!

The VQR blog also links to an article from the Willesden Herald providing 27 reasons why they believe short stories are rejected. This list is written in classic British dry-witty style, and it makes me glad I’ve not tried short fiction in awhile, for it would surely hit too close to home.

Last but not least, a very funny article on the challenges of writing the short author bio. I’ve written these before for different publications, and admit freely to having fretted just as much as Giles Turnbull does here.