As for the poem, barf-o

When you're an editor for a magazine it's always exciting to receive submissions that blow you away. On the other hand, this also means you're ultimately bound to receive submissions that, well, blow chunks.

The Virginia Quarterly Review's blog reveals the often hilarious and brutal comments their readers make on their rejections of submissions that fit into the "bad" and "terrible" categories. Here are some of my favorites:

• I can’t enumerate all the ways in which this is horrible.
• If this were written by an eighth grader, I’d call a parent/teacher conference to discuss his anger issues. Since he’s a self-published novelist, though, I can only decline this and move on with my life.
• This guy has either the best or the worst cover letter ever. As for the poem, barf-o.
• Why does the speaker’s wife only want babies from Chinese shacks? This is the craziest poem. And the scariest. I feel like we should the call the cops on this guy. (There should be a category called “Inappropriate to Humanity.”)
• Oh my god. A poem about grocery shopping and getting caught in traffic. Is this woman stalking me or just boring me to death?

More here.