I was in despair. Last Friday I received not one, not two, but three rejections for my poetry submissions. I was beginning to entertain the thought that perhaps poetry was not for me and I should give up writing it. I was definitely ready to give up submitting to literary journals.

I really couldn't see the point of banging my head against a brick wall any more. In the last two years I've sent countless poems to every literary journal I could find. And every single time I've been rejected. I'm pretty stubborn but it seemed like perhaps someone was trying to tell me something and maybe it was time to listen.

Lucky for me, I still had several submissions which I was waiting to hear about. And yesterday morning I got the best e-mail ever. The subject line was:

Your Poem Will Be in BROWNFACE

I don't think I quite registered what it said until I was halfway through the email and I got to this part:

Winnie Dunn, guest poetry editor of Cordite 100: BROWNFACE, have made her selections for the issue, and I'm happy to report that they would like to include your work(s):

'Never Seen'

And once I realised that I finally had a poem accepted by a literary journal I wanted to scream and shout but half the house was asleep so I couldn't. Instead I settled for the biggest grin ever and jumping around my study. What a difference a few days can make!

I think the acceptance is all the sweeter because I had to wait so long and work so hard for it. The things that come easy never mean as much as those we have to sweat blood for.