Magazine Finally Accepts Her Submission

The influential literary magazine Poetry has rejected Ruth Lilly’s verse for decades, but it’s not about to snub her latest offering: a multimillion-dollar gift.

The ailing billionaire heiress to the Eli Lilly Co. pharmaceutical fortune will give the Chicago publication, which frequently has had less than $100 in its till, millions of dollars a year.

Lilly started sending in poems in the 1970s. The editor thought they were good, but not to Poetry standards.

Over the years, Lilly said, she warmed to the handwritten rejection notes of editor Joe Parisi.