[Shaun J. Russell]

A few years ago when I was doing a lot of submitting (i.e.: going through Poet's Market 2008 and circling venues to send to), I crossed out all the entries that said, "no rhyming poetry" and similar sentiments (some of them, by the way, were quite militant against rhyming poems), and considered everything else fair game. As a result, I got a lot of formal, rhyming poems in venues that were mostly known for free verse, but never explicitly stated that they wouldn't look at the formal stuff.

I sometimes worry that a lot of formalists don't make the effort (and it is an effort) to send work to non-formal venues. It can be pretty rewarding.

In a way, I'm glad that there are poetry venues that explicitly state that they don't want the formal stuff. It makes it a little easier to pick and choose venues.

By the way, Ed, I personally think there's a lot to be said for a perfect, concise poem, rather like many I've seen from you. There are always exceptions, but many long poems tend to ramble. I can get through "Eve of St. Agnes" or "Lines Written In A Country Churchyard" and most lengthy Auden, but for every one of those, there's a dozen that I can't muster up the stamina to plow through.