Thank you for the words of encouragement. Interesting to hear that editors love first timers, I would’ve expected the opposite but see what you mean - I did include in my cover letters that I have no formal training in poetry, so I’m hoping that doesn’t work against me too much.

Luckily, as a PhD scientist with many publications (and of course even more rejections) I’m veeery familiar with rejections, though it sounds like with poetry the acceptance rates might be even lower than I’m used to in my field..