Having written poetry for decades, I have about 300 pieces that have not been published, some for good reason, some because I felt overwhelmed tracking and sorting them. In response to the promise I made to myself and the Wellfleet Dozen (twelve women in Marge Piercy’s recent poetry workshop), I spent hours this week updating my spread sheet on a site called Duotrope (Google it). This site will allow me to track where an individual poem has tried to worm its way into an editor’s heart, and when it succeeds, out there in poetry land, I can stuff it into the retired/published category, where it will rest until I choose to include it in a collection. The site does not keep the poem, just its title and its submission history.

This website costs $5.00 a month to maintain, and can be used for fiction, individual poems, manuscripts, etc. If you start early and maintain it on a regular basis, you will not have to replicate my process of hours on screen catching up. Furthermore, the site sends members a newsletter about potential markets with detailed info, like rejection rates, length of time until a reply, etc. If you return to a market you have previously tapped into, Duotrope keeps that information and reminds you which pieces have already been offered to a particular publication. No embarrassing comments like “We didn’t like this the first time we saw it.”

I looked at several other websites before going back to Duotrope, but none of the others that I found were as complete, and for the price, it’s a great help. So, I am better prepared now to keep my promise to be more proactive about submissions. Now if I can unclench my fingers from the keyboard, I’ll go get breakfast and then come back to my desk to send off a submission or two or five.