Poetry Magazine

The November 2022 of Poetry, the publication of the Poetry Foundation, includes numerous works by Will Alexander in the special feature “Will Alexander: Poet-As-Spectrometer” introduced by Johannes Göransson along with an interview of Alexander by Jenna Peng. Also included in this volume are works by Troy Osaki, C. Dale Young, Austin Araujo, Wingston González, Julian Randall, Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon, Raquel Salas Rivera, Carl Phillips, Gabrielle Bates, Adam Wolfond, Liliana Ponce, Tina Chang, Torrin A. Greathouse, Tariq Luthun, and Taneum Bambrick. All content is free to read online in addition to many other poetry resources for readers, writers, and teachers.

As the newly established editor of this long-standing publication, Poetry Magazine, Adrian Matejka welcomes readers with an ethusiastic Editor’s Introduction, expounding on all the ways she had intended to drive the content to “showcase the beautiful confluence of voices in contemporary poetry” and “to offer an idea of what Poetry might look like in the future.” Instead, Matejka admits, she “began this job in a convergence of ignorant and well-meaning ambition,” and she has no reservations in sharing this, as “one of the things you’ll get from me while I’m an editor here is transparency of process and editorial proclivity.” Tempering the ambitions, Matejka assures, “Instead of trying to curate a single issue celebrating the 110th year of Poetry, we are using this historic issue to begin a multi-year, long-form interrogation of the magazine’s complicated archive in hopes of illuminating some of the brilliant poets who weren’t given access in the previous decades. You get to see the beginning of that excavation in this issue as we highlight the gorgeous work of Carolyn Marie Rodgers, author of numerous books, cofounder of Third World Press, long-time Chicago resident, and a vital Black poet whose work never appeared in the pages of Poetry until now.”

Other poets whose works are featured in this issue include Adrian Matejka, Alex Dimitrov, Dāshaun Washington, Martín Espada, Ruth Ellen Kocher, Yusef Komunyakaa, Karyna Mcglynn, Trevor Ketner, Edgar Kunz, Eugene Gloria, Victoria Chang, Myronn Hardy, Winniebell Xinyu Zong, Ladan Osman, and Diane Seuss.

One of my absolute favorite monthly publications, Poetry Magazine never ceases to engage me in the thresholds of change in our literary community. The September 2022 issue, with guest editor Esther Berlin, addresses concerns we have all witnessed and/or been part of transforming. “Dear Reader,” opens: “Honor, celebration, and memory come to mind when I think about the idea of monuments. The process of harnessing collective moments into a physical manifestation, something representational of the essence that surges a person’s core—that’s a monument. All the feels—rage, suffering, release, distrust, comfort, melancholy, ambivalence, ache, compassion, mercy, the urgency to remedy—contribute to constituting and dismantling monuments.” And, addressing both the internal workings at the Poetry Foundation, itself in a process of rebuilding, and those in our surrounding communities, Berlin continues, “This special issue brings attention to the idea of monuments in order to map and reframe contrived or mythical systems of power, to extend narratives through repositioning focal points.” And closes, “In my last issue as guest editor, I invite you to celebrate with me poetry as monuments, as unifying offerings, the revising of history of so many existing monuments, erased and rubbed out, and now redrawn. The unsaid no longer ruminating, no longer a hungry ghost, no longer a missed call.”

Contributors to this issue include Martín Tonalmeyotl, Kierstin Bridger, Lucas Jorgensen, Mansi Dahal, Rena Priest, Janelle Tan, Vance Couperus, Henk Rossouw, Crisosto Apache, Keith S. Wilson, Amber McCrary, Kenzie Allen, Lesley Wheeler, Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach, Krystyna Dąbrowska, Serena Rodriguez, Daniela Ema Aguinsky, Spring Ulmer, Joan Naviyuk Kane, Bes Bajraktarević, Tyler Mitchell, Ajibola Tolase, Christopher Shipman, Joan Wickersham, A. Van Jordan, and Walter Ancarrow.

The July/August issue of Poetry Magazine is guest-edited by Esther Belin, a Diné (Navajo) multimedia artist and writer, and is dedicated to the topic of  Land Acknowledgments. In the “Dear Reader” introduction, she writes:

“One of the biggest take backs is the re-territorializing of language. In this issue, quite a number of Indigenous writers are expanding poetics, resuscitating tribal languages, refashioning the English language with tribal meter, rhythm, and sound. I hope more than a few readers will understand the significance of this feat. Little more than fifty years ago, many of these writers would have been overlooked, misunderstood, or questioned about the legitimacy of their poetics. This volume acknowledges the history of racism and privilege in how access to publishing has been extended and the selection process of those eventually published. This volume acknowledges that the represented writers merely hint at the momentum of literary sovereignty occurring in Indian country, in addition to Indigenous writers throughout the globe.”

Writers included in this seminal issue are Allison Akootchook Warden, Manny Loley, Beth Piatote, Dean Rader, Abigail Chabitnoy, Valerie Wallace, Elise Paschen, Gabriel Dunsmith, Anthony Cody, Max Early, Franklin K.R. Cline, Michael Thompson, Megha Rao, Jayant Kashyap, Hao Guang Tse, Micaela Merryman, Halee Kirkwood, Ariana Benson, Arthur Sze, Michelle Whitstone, Tina Deschenie, Majda Gama, Ibe Liebenberg, Carol Moldaw, Toni Giselle Stuart, Jake Skeets, Laura Da’, Jay Wieners, Yvonne, Jennifer Militello, Krysten Hill, Jessica Kim, Khải Đơn, Yaccaira Salvatierra, Bai Juyi, Tim Tim Cheng, and Adedayo Agarau. There is also an interview with Arthur Sze. Poetry Magazine and its many wonderful resources are free online.

The June 2022 issue of Poetry Magazine is guest-edited by Esther Belin, who offers a “Dear Reader,” introduction that is as beautiful and compelling to read as any poem she has selected for this month’s collection. Uniquely offering two different writing prompts in her note, she closes by commenting on writing from “a mountain desert region in the American Southwest”: “Once again, reader, I think of you as I write from a hardback chair at my dining table placed near a south-facing window. This window is comforting to me, as is this table and chair. I have labored from this place, I have experienced joy from this place, and now I experience grief from it. The familiarity and safety of this space help me to propel toward the essential and recalibrate my center. That is my offering to you. May you align with a poem (or many) in this volume that propels you back to your center.” Guiding the readers in their alignment with poems in this issue are Esther Belin, Jill Zheng, Ae Hee Lee, Fatemeh Shams, Armen Davoudian, Max Schleicher, Cindy Juyoung Ok, Rajiv Mohabir, Patricia Jabbeh Wesley, Monica Sok, Tarik Dobbs, Sarina Romero, Romeo Oriogun, Madeleine Wattenberg, Qiang Meng, Heather Nagami, Orlando White, Courtney Faye Taylor, Shook, and Chad Bennett, Shelby Handler. All of Poetry Magazine‘s content is free to read online.

The May 2022 issue of Poetry Magazine begins with Guest Editor Srikanth Eddy’s final Editor’s Note, providing context for the theme “Make It Old,” with “old” being a “comparative measure.” The issue features “old” works in contemporary translations, and this is one time where the online version may rival the print publication. The print issue features English-only versions whereas online, readers can view the original text, the translation, and translators’ notes on their poems. Some works include “an avant-garde Brazilian poem from 1912, a Mayan creation myth, fragments of a pre-Socratic cosmology, the first circle of Dante’s Inferno stripped down to couplets, Medieval rune poems excavated after a fire in the harbor district of Bergen, Norway, a Nahuatl drinking song, a late Tang dynasty love letter, Osage talk, what might e the first Japanese tanka about baby diapers, and many more contributions.”