Rejection is implicit in neglected writing. Although neglect is its own kind of rejection, rejection slips are a real embodiment of a particular type of exclusion. Every writer receives these terse artifacts, these expressions of a cryptic cast-off culture inherent to writing practices. Aside from some editors who try to get creative (e.g., Arthur C. Fifield's moronic rejection of The Making of Americans), the general message hasn't changed (although now articulated in born-digital formats). The generic nature of rejection is well evidenced in this small collection of slips received by the American poet and e.e. cummings scholar Eve Triem (1902-1992) during the 60s—a reminder that rejection is often just as meaningless as it is mechanical.

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