I think Eileen is making fun of me, although I'm not sure. My little bit the other day about my own adventures in Asian American poetry. Hum. Well, I had been sort of hoping nobody would probe too closely into said unnamed Asian American publication, knowing, of course, that Eileen was an editor emerita--but she called me out.

I like the idea that maybe the interns reversed the accept and reject piles, leading to an "all-reject" issue which (perhaps?) included my poem. In my little anecdote, in a way it would have been better to be rejected than accepted, since it would have proved (I suppose) that my parody was noticeably off or even offensive. But it would have been a bit more ego-bruising, I suppose. And it wouldn't have made me rethink what I was doing in quite the same way.

So being "accepted" (even if "accepted"="rejected") made me more self-critical than if I had been "rejected." And I also realize that my attempt to narrate my own process of coming to the idea of Asian American writing might have come off a little too arch--the issues are a lot more complicated than I realized then, and I'm especially grateful for Eileen's tireless work as poet and editor. Cheers.