Words' Worth
Last month, I received a rejection letter from a renowned literary magazine, which sounded more like an empathetic enquiry of my well-being and less like a rejection letter.

Last month, I received a rejection letter from a renowned literary magazine, which sounded more like an empathetic enquiry of my well-being and less like a rejection letter. It made me happy. I had submitted to them almost a year ago and forgotten about it.
It was not a generic mail, and it made me think how much of being a writer rides on being empathetic, and trusting of everyone around you. It needs you to be strong and yet sensitive. Vulnerable, and yet assertive. Patient, and yet kind. Itâs not easy to be a writer. Itâs never easy to be someone who is always trying.
The letter read like this: âDear Swathi,
Thank you for submitting to ___ ____ ____, and for your patience in awaiting a response. Although we won't be carrying your work in the magazine, we are grateful for the opportunity to read and consider it, and we hope that you are staying safe in these difficult times.â I wasnât even expecting a response, let alone a rejection letter. I decided to write about why language matters. What we say, how we think, who we speak to and what we want convey matters a great deal.
Read Wordsâ Worth and comment below to let me know what you think.
Words' Worth
When all the words in the English Language
congregate in the
Great Hall of Literary Structures,
Would they take pride in beingâ
the most difficult?
the longest?
the most confusing?
What would they fight aboutâââ
their text colour?
their font sizes,
their grammatical patterns and
their partners?
Would parentheses be afraid of
the Oxford comma, or would a comma
guard itself from a full stopâs inherent need
to end conversations? Â
How would they arrive?
Seated together in their wagons,
or galloping on white horses with wings?
Would they form their sentences
on their journey?
Or would they break off from paragraphs
to meet other âbetterâ words?
Would vowels be more coveted than consonants?
Would they come from a condescending,
complicated society filled with vileness
where vowels married consonants
but never their own kind?
Would âqueueâ be a redundant word in the meetings
with nothing much to say?
or would it be the strongest, shortest word?
Would their discussions revolve around
what happens in their books
and their experiences
with different types of readers?
Or would they fight over
the best book in the world,
the best Presidents and Prime Ministers
being their Writers and Editors?
Would a cat with a capital C be superior
to a lazy cat in the middle of a sentence?
Would a tear be upset about a tear?
Or would a fragile piece of lead
be proud for being mistaken for lead?
Would âseeâ and âseaâ see and greet each other
discussing the actual sea,
waves lapping and humans surfing?
Would homonyms and homophones
team up to compete against
homographs and heteronyms?
(Read a dictionary, humans!)
For you see, all the worldâs a stage,
and all the words, in a cage.
If they congregated with good intentions,
theyâd make a wonderful book,
but right now, they are ripping each other up
and warring to sound gibberish ââ
the exact state of our States,
and the World today.
Say what you want, but
language matters always.
Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash