EDITORIAL  Issue 36
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We're back, after a series of delays and technical mishaps. It's been, almost a year I think, or close, since the last issue went up. I have to admit I'd wondered on a number of occasions whether we'd make it. 3rd Muse has been going for almost 9 years now. Not a bad run, particularly in internet terms. I did a search actually, for around a half dozen poetry magazines I recalled being around at the time 3rd Muse began. Ones I respected. Ones which in part inspired me to start 3rd Muse. Only one of them was still going.

Not a bad excuse to call it quits. Trouble is, I wasn't looking for an excuse to call it quits. I was looking for an excuse to keep going.

At around the end of last year, I found myself with over 600 submissions still to be read. Three computers - one old desktop, one new one, and a laptop - to juggle them between and attempt to put into some kind of order. An HTML editor which refused to work equally well from one PC to another. A subscribers list which inexplicably vanished. And, well, other stuff.

Some poems had already been accepted, the new issue was meant to go up at the beginning of the year at the latest - I was letting people down. The response time to submissions, slated to be at under 8 weeks, was taking as long as 6 months in some cases. Or longer. I was letting people down. Some submissions, somewhere along the line, I know, vanished along with the subscribers list. I was letting people down.

As of this writing, the "inbox" for submissions is gloriously empty. (Though I have not checked my mail in the last half hour or so.) A few hundred rejections are waiting to be mailed out as soon as this issue goes up - leaving the "rejections" folder, likewise, squeaky clean. And what's left over, are 6 poets, whose poems are presented within this issue. (Those of you mathematically inclined will note, that our acceptance rate has fallen to below 1%.) Those of course, as I knew all along, constituting the excuse I was looking for to keep going.

It's good stuff. I like to read it. Seeing the issue together makes me feel like I have done something worthwhile.

In other news, we've added a "donate" button to the main page of 3rd Muse. An idea I've been kicking around for a while, which I feel is worth a try. If you have any rich aunts or uncles please send them over. Read the spiel, for more info.

 

Mark Melton
Editor
3rd Muse Poetry Journal