Not trying to start a fistfight here, but respectfully:

1) Personally, I'd never want to find myself in a situation where I was selecting my reading material based on politics rather than quality, and

2) If my political beliefs (regarding poetic modes) were so strong that I couldn't keep them from influencing my reading choices, I certainly wouldn't expect to aid the cause of de-ghetto-fying formal poetry by investing dollars in what are basically ghetto properties.

$0.02,

jack

I subscribe and usually find something to like in every issue, probably about as much as I find in any of the half-dozen or so other poetry publications I subscribe to. It's very rare that I find anything that knocks my socks off, but that's true even when I'm browsing through some heavy-weight anthology. Anyway, how often do you want your socks knocked off?
RPW

I just subscribed again to Poetry after a very very long absence because the cost was cut in half and I'd heard good things about the new Poetry magazine and wanted to give it a shot. Also, they had a triolet by Alicia Stallings in the envelope and I thought, hell, any magazine that advertises itself with formalist Spherean Alicia deserves a half-priced shot. After I read a few issues, I'lll report back.

Jack,
I think you are misinterpreting what I am saying. I said that I read other journals, too, but that I choose to support journals that are open to formal writing. Two of the journals I mentioned--THE DARK HORSE and BLUE UNICORN--are not primarily formal in their orientation, but do include a reasonable sprinkling of it and have a respectful attitude toward it. I will freely admit that many poems in the journals I subscribe to are dull, too, but there are so few formal-friendly journals that I want to help them survive--partly out of self-interest, so that I will have places to send my own work, and partly because I can learn something about formal technique even from poems whose content I may not find particularly interesting. High quality is rare in any journal, no matter what its orientation. I am constantly on the lookout for poetry journals that publish formal poetry regularly along with the free verse, but they still seem quite rare.

Susan

Susan, I don't think I misinterpreted at all. Choosing to support formal-friendly journals exclusively (or even almost exclusively) -- whether those journals are 100% formal poetry, or 50% -- is a political act, rather than an act of aesthetic judgement. If a small journal like Blue Unicorn filled, say, only 10% or less of each issue with formal poetry, would you even know of them at all? Is their circulation more than a few hundred? Have they had poems featured in Best American Poetry, or the Pushcart anthology?

A few star-bellied sneeches bunking next to the starless doesn't mean the neighborhood isn't a ghetto. And the familiar argument about supporting formal-friendlies, when advocated by others, usually includes The Usual Suspects: strictly formalist publications like I&T, The Formalist (RIP), The Lyric, The NeoVictorian/Cochlea, et al. And they *are* ghettos. Venues where formal work is segregated from (and therefore doesn't have to compete with) free verse. NOT healthy.

I believe your characterization of Wiman's formal selections as "token" concessions is dubious. If you've read the issues from this past year alone, you'll notice that formal content isn't merely there -- formal poetry may actually be over-represented, based on how much of what is actually being written and submitted.

I suspect that the Bad Old Days are almost if not completely over, and that editors of larger, more renowned and prestigious journals would love to receive more high-quality formal work. Writers like Stallings and Dove and Hacker made those inroads over the last decade or so, and it seems a shame not to take advantage of those gaps in the fortifications.

I think Good Editors know that the Good Poem belongs, regardless of whether or not it's metrical, or of a traditional form. If you put all your dollars in the ghetto, don't be surprised when the rift is perpetuated, and the formalist gene pool grows weaker over time. Formalists' willingness to compete, rather than to run and hide in Iambs & Trochees or Blue Unicorn, will make or break them.


[This message has been edited by jack edwards (edited July 20, 2006).]

Gail, I subscribe. Sometimes the poems are excellent, sometimes weak, sometimes wretched, but the letters and reviews are always full of color these days.

Jack, that sounds good in theory, except that the overwhelming majority of the lit mags out there are still towing the free verse party line, and making no bones about it. The ghetto-izing is pretty entrenched, eh. I write from both sides, tend to straddle the fence on poem politics, and I only subscribe to journals that publish from both schools, but it seems sort've silly to pretend that Free Verse hasn't been a gated establishment for a good many years. Which is pretty funny if you think about it, as it's put formalism in the Long Haired Freaky People Need Not Apply camp. Like you, I notice formalism becoming more visible. You sound bitter about it ? Unless you're talking about quality, that's politics !

Incidentally, I enjoy sending my formal stuff to those who say they want none of it. I've even snuck in under the radar a couple of times. Even better, I occasionally send poems to magazines that never even publish poems. Now THAT would be a cool hurdle to clear.


wendy
ps, Dave, thanks for the plug.



[This message has been edited by wendy v (edited July 20, 2006).]

[edit] Mmmm, nevermind. I've been far too gabby in this thread today. Sorry for the mess.

[This message has been edited by jack edwards (edited July 20, 2006).]

Jack, I buy the magazines I want to read. I don't subscribe out of a sense of duty; it's a matter of self-interest. If I like a magazine and want to see it continue enough to part with a little of my hard-earned income, that's a choice, like deciding what movie to attend or where to go on vacation or which grocery store gives me the most value for my money. It isn't political; it's personal.

And I don't give a hang about the future of poetry. Poetry--past, present, and future--is entertainment for me; it is not a cause.

Carol

Jack wrote:
As usual I agree and disagree. Aren't most metrical poets submitting work to a whole bunch of places, some of which are metrical-only, and some of which are open to whatever? In that case, what we're doing is no different from what a poet does who writes non-met exclusively, occasionally submitting to magazines that print only non-met (or print the occasional metrical poem if it's by someone famous).

So, yes, metrical-only magazines give a "leg up" to metrical poets, and a mediocre metrical poet could land some undeserved publications in one or two of them. But lots of other magazines provide that same "leg up" to non-met poets. Or you could use other categories: sentimental, edgy, heavy on the sonics, any kind of themed issue, etc. What magazine prints only gems?

Also, it's not just about publishing. Sometimes as a reader I'm simply in the mood to sit down and read something like Measure, knowing I can expect to find lots of sonnets and so forth. People who write in form/meter tend to like reading it.

p.s. It's okay to be gabby. If not, a lot of us are in big trouble!


[This message has been edited by Rose Kelleher (edited July 20, 2006).]

Aaaw, I hate the nevermind.

Jack, I thought your now-erased clarification well written, and your anti-meter making argument unapologetic
in its biases -- except for the ol' some of my best friends are bean counters part.

Of course the real arguments about these things take place in the bodies of poems, and only Time can decide those. It goes without saying that both schools can and do produce plenty of wreckage. Still, as you note, (ironically just before neverminding), it's healthy for artists to enter the shadowy worlds outside the safety and pitch of their own choirs. Whether those worlds be ghettoes or
gated communities.

The rub is that it always goes both ways.

Sorry to hijack your poll, Gail.


wendy