‘Thieving Magpies’ is an online literary magazine published in the United States. The rule for submission of poetry is that you send 3 previously unpublished poetry to them for consideration. They have the option to reject it or approve it for publication. It sometimes takes months to hear from them- like it did the first two times that I sent it to them. And finally when they did reply, it was to say that they thought I had the potential but they couldn’t publish the poems because they felt it could be worked upon further. After two rejections, I am thrilled to have three of my poems published in the Winter edition of the magazine. I got to know that my poems were selected, on Christmas. The email said ‘Well Done. Your poems will be published in our winter edition. Send us your bio and the poems again after rechecking them.’ I was ecstatic, but I was so busy celebrating the festival that I delayed replying to the email. Three days later, I woke up early in the morning to reply to their email, but I see an email from them saying that they were sorry but they couldn’t wait any longer and would have to go ahead with their publication without my poems. I replied back apologizing for the delay and resent the poems and my bio, and requested them to please consider it. They said they would do what they could. II was happy with their response but still uncertain. So, two days later, when the winter edition was published, I rummaged through the pages to look for mine, and there it was. You can read the poems here.

A little background on these poems before you read them-

a) ‘Who knew’ was written in memory of someone who cooked our meals.

b) ‘A year after you left’ wrote itself out on my dad’s first death anniversary

c) ‘Making peace with the pain’ was written, a day after my dad’s death anniversary.

I would truly appreciate your feedback on the poems. So, please feel free to let me know, in the comments section.

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