A book of poetry almost always includes an acknowledgments page, where the poet thanks magazines for publishing poems that are now being collected. I read two recent books by good poets, and looking over the lists of their prior publications I see few magazines appear on both— wait, I see no overlap at all. Huh. That’s interesting in its own way.
Poet #1:
The Adroit Journal
BODY Poetry
Beloit Poetry Journal
Colorado Review
Diode
Frontier Poetry
Gulf Stream Magazine
Harpur Palate
H.O.W. Journal
Indiana Review
LAMBDA Literary’s Poetry Spotlight
The Los Angeles Review
The Missouri Review
Narrative Magazine
Nashville Review
New South
Nimrod International Journal
Ninth Letter
North American Review
Passages North
Thrush Poetry Journal
Tinderbox Poetry Journal
Tupelo Quarterly
Waxwing
West Trade Review
Poet #1’s book is out from BOA Editions.
Poet #2:
Wise Owl
Old Red Kimono
Avant Appalachia
Tenth Muse
Clamor
Pulsar
San Antonio Review
Schuykill Valley Review
Steam Ticket
Lullwater Review
Uppagas
Amulet
Whistling Shade
NOD Magazine
US1 Worksheets
Umbrella Factory
Door Is A Jar
California Quarterly
Pinyon Review
Isotrope
Kennings
Bethlehem Writer’s Roundtable
Havik
Illya’s Honey
Off Course
Firelight
EKL Review
Abbey
South Florida Poetry Journal
Floyd County Moonshine
Shot Glass Journal
Suisin Valley Review
Poetry Superhighway
Chronopolis
Lost Pilots
Adelaide Literary Magazine
Fourth and Sycamore
Triggerfish
Trajectory
Blueline
Doubly Mad
Cool Beans Lit
In Between Hangovers
Perceptions
La Presa
Poet #2’s book is out from Cyberwit.
The magazines publishing Poet #1 are mostly known to me. I published in one of them. Many of the others have declined my poems. These are relatively high prestige venues. Poet #1 hasn’t hit the heights of Poetry Magazine or Paris Review, but the magazines he lists are very competitive. If you look at the names in a current issue you will recognize some — that is, if you recognize the names of contemporary poets.
Many of the magazines publishing Poet #2 are unfamiliar. I have published in four of them and been rejected by a few others. I will look up more of them, curious to see what they’re like. Some have such fun names! Old Red Kimono, Whistling Shade, Umbrella Factory. Wouldn’t telling people I have a poem in Umbrella Factory get their attention more than telling them I had a poem in Indiana Review? Indiana Review is a handsome, perfect-bound, digest-sized literary magazine, the kind of product that, as a baby poet, I remember awe-fully flipping through at the newsstand or library. Whereas Umbrella Factory (I just looked it up) is web-only. Umbrella Factory’s latest issue has six writers in it, so they must be pretty picky, even if I don’t know them as “prestige.” But then, I don’t recognize the names of any of the six.
Based on these lists, which poet would you rather be, Poet #1 or Poet #2.
The careerist in me (yes, he’s still alive, the fucker) says Poet #1. The populist in me says Poet #2. The realist in me would be thrilled to be either.
I still like the : "Some of these poems were published in Blah, Blah and Blah blah blah." Not the three pages of acknowledgements I see in new poetry books at library. And I do understand that the library probably buys from a narrow in scope catalog of some type. Or maybe a buyer in some coffee shop.
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DeleteI also prefer the dense little paragraph in small print to the poem by poem list with lots of leading. I really don't care that "Super Poem" was published in "Big Heroes Poetry Review," say.
DeleteBerkeley Public Library's current buying policies are not friendly to indies. The buyer requires reviews in multiple places and I think they have to be able to buy everything from Baker & Taylor.
Neither of these books was picked up from the library. Poet #2 is John Grey who bills himself as an Australian poet living in America. He has been publishing gobs of poems over many years in no-prestige places and (occasionally) high-prestige places. He doesn't seem to have shouldered his way into the prestige poet crowd. The book I used for this list is his latest, Subject Matters, which was published by CyberWit, an India-based publisher. I couldn't find a single John Grey book in the library systems to which I have access -- neither public nor university. I got Subject Matters via Amazon. I became curious about Grey because I kept liking the poems that I was coming across in obscure zines -- sometimes near a poem of mine. Could be this is the same John Grey who appears in position #5 on a old list of most pub'd poets: https://dareiread.blogspot.com/2020/06/lyn-lifshin-virgil-suarez-way-out-in.html