Review of Poetry Magazine

Poetry Magazine, published by the Poetry Foundation, www.poetryfoundation.org, is one of the oldest, most respected U.S. poetry journals. Founded in 1912 by Harriet Monroe, the journal has published works by famous poets such as T.S. Eliott, Anne Sexton, Joyce Kilmer, Robert Frost and William Carlos Williams before they were established.

The journal takes great pride it’s “open door” publication policy. Poetry encourages submissions from all poetry genres and schools, and chooses not to set themes for each issue like many journals. I think this is terrific, because it leaves poets unconstrained in what they choose to write and submit. Since Poetry was established, the publication’s mission statement expresses their desire “to print the best English verse which is being written today, regardless of where, by whom, or under Poetry is well known and is easy to locate -- it consistently lands in the top fifteen entries when you search Google for “poetry.”

Each issue of Poetry contains numerous poets’ works, reviews of poetry and letters to the editors, mostly comments on poetry and our society. While there are exceptions, the majority of published poems appear to be no longer than an 8 ½ by 11 page, for example the following two poems:

I knew something was wrong

by Dorothea Grossman

I knew something was wrong

the day I tried to pick up a

small piece of sunlight

and it slithered through my fingers,

not wanting to take shape.

Everything else stayed the same—

the chairs and the carpet

and all the corners

where the waiting continued.

Source: Poetry (March 2010).

In the loop

by Bob Hicok

I heard from people after the shootings. People

I knew well or barely or not at all. Largely

the same message: how horrible it was, how little

there was to say about how horrible it was.

People wrote, called, mostly e-mailed

because they know I teach at Virginia Tech,

to say, there’s nothing to say. Eventually

I answered these messages: there’s nothing

to say back except of course there’s nothing

to say, thank you for your willingness

to say it. Because this was about nothing.

A boy who felt that he was nothing,

who erased and entered that erasure, and guns

that are good for nothing, and talk of guns

that is good for nothing, and spring

that is good for flowers, and Jesus for some,

and scotch for others, and “and” for me

in this poem, “and” that is good

for sewing the minutes together, which otherwise

go about going away, bereft of us and us

of them. Like a scarf left on a train and nothing

like a scarf left on a train. As if the train,

empty of everything but a scarf, still opens

its doors at every stop, because this

is what a train does, this is what a man does

with his hand on a lever, because otherwise,

why the lever, why the hand, and then it was over,

and then it had just begun.

The publication prints eleven times a year and digital editions are available online for 1987 and the years 1999 to the most recent March 2010 publication: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/index.html

Also helpful for poets considering submission, online are monthly podcasts from the editors speaking about the most recent publication. These podcast give insight in to the nature of the publication.

Individual copies of the journal are $4.25 each, and a year’s subscription costs $35. They do offer a student subscription – 11 issues for $17.50. Poetry does solicit advertising -- to those who prefer an ad-free literary journal.

To submit your work to Poetry, set up an online account at submissions.poetrymagazine.org. They only accept unpublished work, and submission response time is 6-8 weeks. If your work is accepted, Poetry is a paying publication ($10 per line, $300 minimum and two copies of the publication) and you will be eligible for the magazine’s prestigious annual prizes. Only poems accepted for publication in Poetry are considered eligible for their contest.

I leave you with my one of my favorite poems from the March 2010 issue:

I have to tell you

by Dorothea Grossman

I have to tell you,

there are times when

the sun strikes me

like a gong,

and I remember everything,

even your ears.