The Worth of a Name

There’s been a bit of fuss in the literary realm lately. Yi-Fen Chou’s poem was selected for inclusion in Best American Poetry, 2015. A prestigious publication, the anthology’s contents are culled from the half-zillion U.S. literary magazines published annually. Getting into it ain’t easy. The fuss started when it turned out Yi-Fen Chou is the nom de guerre of someone named Michael Derrick Hudson. To give him credit, Hudson readily admits to the subterfuge. In a contributor note Hudson said:

“After a poem of mine has been rejected a multitude of times under my real name, I put Yi-Fen’s name on it and send it out again. As a strategy for ‘placing’ poems this has been quite successful for me.”

I’ll say. Under Hudson, the poem in question was rejected 40 times. Under Yi-Fen, it was only rejected nine times before Prairie Schooner took it.

One immediately questions the biases of editors, grad students or whoever screens submissions for venerable journals like Prairie Schooner these days. Is the poet’s name a flag for more careful consideration? Poems otherwise discarded kept for the chance of adding the spice of diversity?

I am reminded of Doris Lessing’s story, how she wrote and sent those novels as Jane Somers, to her own publishers among others, to prove a point. Sure enough, they were rejected, by her publishers and others, but eventually published. Reading those books, I marveled that her editors could have failed to recognize her writing. They almost certainly never read them: I’m betting some screener saw the unknown name and dropped the manuscripts in the reject pile.

I was wishy-washy about my name for years. I tell my arts students now: pick your stage name early and stick with it. Good advice from one who has not taken that advice herself. I published under Pat Keuning, and Pat Herrera and Patricia Urioste and various combinations of the above. The author of my first book of poems was Patricia Keuning Urioste, a last gesture to my soon to be ex-husband.

My name wasn’t even Patricia. To bestow my mother’s name and avoid Patricia, my parents decided on Pat-Louise. They liked Pat. Patricia was a bit pretentious for their working class sensibilities. When I was growing up, hyphenated names were not a thing. Not like they are now. A college friend argued that I should write under just Pat-Louise, that it had panache. Nineteen, I had too much adolescent rebellion in me to go with anything my folks chose. Now I think it wasn’t a bad idea.

Over thirty years ago, I changed my name legally to Patricia Dubrava after the divorce, but couldn’t get myself to take the plunge and jettison Keuning. It was my father’s name and he was gone. I shrank from a sense of disloyalty, feared losing a portion of heritage, as if the Dutch in me would sail away with the name. So Dubrava Keuning it was, and has been a hassle ever since because American records systems can’t accommodate two surnames unless they’re hyphenated. “Ms. Dubrava,” the school treasurer asks, perplexed. “Why does payroll use Keuning?” And I explain again.

Before that legal change, I’d published a fair number of poems and other writings under Urioste. I always submitted as Keuning Urioste, just to be clear. So editors opening my submissions would easily understand: maiden name, married name. Nonetheless, some publications seemed facilitated by that Basque surname.

When I decided on Dubrava, my Slovak grandmother’s name, several poet friends—including those of the Hispanic persuasion—bewailed the move. I hung with a lot of Latino artist types in those days, worked at the Chicano Humanities and Arts Council, and they thought I’d established a reputation under Urioste. People recognized it. Patricia Dubrava would have to start from scratch.

It would be cheating, I protested. When Patricia Keuning Urioste published poems, more than one Latino magazine printed them under Patricia K. Urioste. They were also cheating. No, I decided. Urioste is a name that has nothing to do with who I am: let it be gone.

I don’t regret that, although Dubrava hasn’t made much progress in the literary world. You can’t get published unless you send stuff out, it seems. A lot of stuff. On a regular basis. Like Hudson’s 49 times for that one poem. Patricia Dubrava never approached that, but did submit poems once in a while. She admired Prairie Schooner and submitted work there two or three times without success. I do wonder now if Patricia Urioste would have fared better.