AQR and My Sternum Biopsy Dream

I received a rejection yesterday from Alaska Quarterly Review. There was a wee bit of ink on the rejection slip. Above the usual verbiage of a rejection slip someone wrote, “Re: Your August Poetry Submission.” At the bottom of the slip this person also wrote, “Thank You.” I’m choosing to interpret this ink as an indication that my poems interested them at least a little and prompted someone to take a few seconds to say thanks. AQR is one of about six literary magazines that I would love to be published in some day.

Coincidentally, fellow blogger Justin Evans has an interesting post about how AQR focused just on poet Albert Goldbarth in their latest issue. Goldbarth’s 16 poems took up all of the poetry space and apparently 13 of the poems have been published previously. I too am at a loss trying to understand why AQR would publish 16 poems of Goldbarth’s and not other poets when Goldbarth is already a well-established poet. Add to this that 13 of the poems have published already—it doesn’t make sense to me.


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I dreamed this morning that my PCP needed to do a biopsy on my sternum. I was in a private hospital room and had to stand and lean over the metal foot of the bed so that Dr. M. could cut at the right angle. I didn’t want the biopsy done and was asking lots of questions and delaying things. The details are hazy now, but somehow I managed to get out of having the biopsy done. I remember walking the halls of a hospital floor and realizing that I desperately needed to urinate. I ducked into an empty patient room and used the bathroom, locking the bathroom door behind me. While I was washing my hands and getting ready to leave the bathroom an orderly came in with a patient, and he tried the bathroom door. At this point I opened the door and beat a path out of the room and down the hall. The orderly got a good look at me as I went by and blessed me out as I walked down the hall. I remember walking down some steps outside towards my car and wondering if I would be reprimanded at work or even fired.