Now that you've read our cover letter advice, it might be helpful to hear what another writer does. After years of publishing her poems, this poet, who wished to remain anonymous, has honed her letters to one or two straightforward paragraphs. The tone is approachable, but professional. She provides all the necessary info and then gets the editor moving right along to the good stuff: her poetry.
She writes:
Dear Editor,I've enclosed five poems for submission to Alaska Quarterly Review. I have sent some of these to a few other publications and will let you know immediately in writing if any are accepted elsewhere. Thank you for your simultaneous submission policy.
Kind regards,
Miss Anonymous Pro Poet
And then I list the poems underneath my name. Actually, I don't do that anymore at all.
That really is it unless I have just read their journal and LOVED something in it, then I will include a sentence after the first one to the effect: "I just finished your Fall 2008 issue and loved So-and-so's poem, 'I Eat Hot Tamales.'" But that is really, really RARE . . . normally I say nothing! Or if they have a policy about only submitting twice a year, I will sometimes say something about that.
If I get a nice rejection note I will say in the first sentence, "thanks for the nice note you sent about my poem," and then I launch right into my thing.
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