Acceptance

One of the early ones, written late one night at the little house on Wildwood Trail, I titled Acceptance. I named it after a favorite Frost poem and began to think that maybe it was good enough to submit it somewhere. I had sent off a few poems over the years, quite sporadically and received some nice comments but nothing but rejections. I bought a copy of Writers and Poets and went through the back pages looking for an ad saying: wanted: James Gray Poems. 

Nothing. However, in the laundry list of publications was one that jumped out at me. The Lyric had been founded in 1921 and was the oldest publication in constant circulation, dedicated to publishing lyric poetry. That was it for me. I sent out several poems as I recall and Acceptance was accepted.

There is a real thrill which every writer knows when that first one hits. For me the thrill happened twice. First, the letter from Leslie Mellichamp, then the editor of The Lyric acknowledging the poem and saying that he would "tuck it into a future issue" and again in the fall of 1990, when it first appeared in print.