I wrote an awful lot of poetry when I was a teenager. (Or should that be, a lot of awful poetry?) And for some reason, I often submitted it to women’s magazines.

I guess I thought there was a market there for the kind of sappy love poems teenaged boys write. In any case, whatever I was selling, no one was buying (either on the page or in the flesh).

Here’s what I got back when I sent a few poems to New Woman, a U.S. magazine which may or may not have had anything to do with the UK magazine of the same name.

I don’t think I ever received another form reject requesting that I supply my fee requirements in future submissions.