rinue | slushtrudge

Belatedly sludging through the slush pile (belatedly by my standards, but I'm reading subs from 6 weeks ago, which is fast by industry norms) which has been huger than normal all reading period, double the ordinary volume, because everyone has lots of time now. (Or hundreds of people are submitting now instead of at another time because they know I'm the one on desk and are fond of me personally. But probably it's the pandemic.) It's a bit of a headache, since I am myself stretched for time and would usually be close to done by now instead of staring down hundreds more unread poems. But this does not make the pieces any less worthy of attention and if anything makes me feel more impelled to add a human note of appreciation when I can.

The main thing I'm trying to suppress is that when I read a bunch of poems at once, I start picking up patterns. On this particular day I have noticed that tons of people who are geographically distant from each other are using the word "palimpsest" and the phrase "on my tongue." Not in the same poem yet, I don't think. There doesn't seem to be a specific fairytale or myth in fashion, though. Usually it seems like there is.