New Journal Idea
 

Inspired by part of Julie's wise post in the thread about poems not being the same:

Someone should start a magazine that devotes a section of each issue (if not the entire magazine) to great poems previously published in venues small enough that their readership might have missed them. (No editor will know what her readers have and haven't read, but I don't think people would be annoyed to occasionally see a poem they'd read elsewhere.) The magazine ought to have an easier time publishing great poems than other magazines with similar resources, and would deserve and perhaps get a higher readership.

The Saturday Evening Poet
 

Okay Max,

Sounds like a good Idea to me. "The Saturday Evening Poet" might be a good name for such a rag; considering that there are many good poets who labor in obscurity (some happily) for many years, with little of any notoriety.

We would need a keen eyed, competent and dedicated, editor. There are many here, judging from critiques I've read, who would qualify.

Seriously, if you did try such an endeavor, I would be glad to lend a hand.

Sincerely,
S

Here's fairly-recent info on some poetry journals that are reprint-friendly:

https://trishhopkinson.com/where-to-submit-reprints/

(Most of which I've never heard of, but heck, that goes for most poetry journals.)

Great idea, Max. Certainly if I were the editor, I wouldn't want to reprint everything. But half or less? Good cause. Can you think of a good name for that journal? It's begging for one.

(Slim Pickens came to mind. Plus a buddy of mine insists he was the best bit-actor who ever lived.)

Titles of Journal or its sections?

Perennial Poems
Recycled Songs
Recycled Sonnets
Republished Poesy
Echoes of Elegies
Errant Elegies
Migrating Music
The Migrating Muse
Diaspora Ditties
Pilgrim Parodies
Pilgrim Pentameters
Travelling Triolets
Two-Time Winners
Twice-Picked Poesy

Diaspora Ditties gets my vote. Anyway, I didn't intend to make light of this- it is a brilliant idea. Just more blood circulating. Which, on the whole, I think is a good thing.

If I were running the magazine, I wouldn't put the reprinting idea in the title. On reflection, it might even be hitting the thing to hard to create a section for reprints. The point would be to

* unapologetically acknowledge original publishers of poems we reprint

* leverage the openness to these poems to put together a better magazine than we could if we eliminated such poems from consideration

(Julie's link shows this isn't an entirely new idea.)

>if I were the editor, I wouldn't want to reprint everything. But half or less?

Far less than half. Quality (according to the editor(s)) would be the whole point.

A few years back there was an ezine that went by the upfront name of The Reprint. They accepted a revised poem of mine but, alas, never published it as they gradually went on permanent hiatus.

I'm actually surprised a journal doesn't already do this. Of course there are websites, very good ones, that do this. But usually from more established magazines. I completely understand the desire to be the first to publish, but this isn't far from that if the poems were pubbed somewhere off the beaten track. And, in some ways, this would be bolder. And btw, Max, I meant that the imagined journal would devote 50% or under of its contents to previously published material.