[Ed Shacklee]

This question may have been asked before, but I’ve not been on the Sphere all that long, so I thought I’d ask:

When new journal announces a call for submissions -- especially when that journal has not put out an issue yet -- and at least says it’s not averse to formal poetry, what else do people look for when deciding whether to submit or not?

Myself, I think I generally fall into the “beggars can’t be choosers” category, and I don’t submit that much, anyway. I do have my standards, as the lady by the lamp post said, but they are generally lax. Besides, I like the idea of a new journal springing up, so if it has (or promises to have) a pretty face and/or a catchy name I’m likely to fall for it. Having strayed into a couple of dodgy places this way, though, I’d like to hear what others have to say, if they’d like to share.

Seeing a couple of new journals on the horizon prompted this thread, but the question is a general one. Which factors impress you favorably, and which ones do you think are reliable as warning bells?

Best,

Ed


P.S. Assuming anyone wants to participate, I'd like to keep this discussion general, unless you happen to want to praise a new journal rather than bury it.

[Maryann Corbett]

As some of you will have figured out, this thread of Ed's is a more general offshoot of a different question begun on another board. Here's the general-advice portion of what I wrote down on that thread:

The first thing you can do is to try using a search engine to find the published work of the editors. Looking at their own work tells you something about what they favor and lets you judge whether you agree with their taste.

If you can muster enough patience, wait for the first issue and see if you like what's there. You might argue that if everybody waited, then first issues would always be weak. But editors of new journals aren't entirely limited to what's submitted.

Startup editors do solicit work. In fact, at times they solicit from what they see on poetry boards. This can be an encouraging way to have one's work first noticed. I've submitted at invitations like those, and sometimes I've been happy about the result. And sometimes not. That's why I recommend caution.

Editors can also ask published poets whose work they know to contribute a poem or two to get things rolling. I like to see that sort of endorsement and encouragement. Not only does it show the editor has moral support, it gives me a better idea what he or she likes. To look for that sort of thing before the first issue, we can look for people listed as members of an "editorial board."

An editor can also include a list of poems that are models of the work he or she likes. I'm thinking here of the list you'll find at American Poetry Journal.

With more than three thousand poetry publications in existence, I think it does no harm to have some criteria for choosing where to submit. And if we're concerned about avoiding unethical discrimination against newcomers as newcomers, we can always send friendly e-mails to recommend what they might change to be more attractive to us.

My two cents, anyway, and subject to deflation. Or inflation, as the case may be.

[Jayne Osborn]

Hi Ed,

I always love reading Maryann's advice; she's full of wisdom. (Unlike moi, but here's my take on your interesting question):
I don't submit that much either (keep promising myself I will), apart from the Brit comps we feature here, over on D & A, but I did enter a new online competition the summer before last, I think it was, and won the very first prize.

It cost me £5 to submit the poem and the prize was a cheque for £30. Not a massive reward but I was still chuffed to have won the comp (with the same amount offered by The Spectator, but minus the massive kudos!).

However, there was a downside - several people pooh-poohed the whole thing because the woman who had started the site wrote pretty dire poetry herself. I felt that I came in for a little bit of 'stick' from those who wouldn't have touched it with a barge-pole themselves. Her poetry might have been considered crap but she was very complimentary about mine, so I like to think she exercised good judgement!
I never looked at the site after that, figuring that I wasn't likely to win again anyway, so I'd quit while I was ahead. I've no idea whether it's still going.

A good poem will stand up for itself, so if you decide to submit one to a new venue which turns out to be no good, that doesn't have to mean your poem is diminished! You'd just choose, as I did, not to bother with them again, and your poem will sit on that site where people can look at it and say, "What a great poem" or something. The only 'harm' done, as far as I can see, is that you may not be able to submit it anywhere else as it's been 'published'.

You can't be totally discerning about an "unknown quantity" in the first instance (or no one would ever go on a date!)
Personally, I look for things like typos and spelling mistakes - we all make them sometimes, but I mean bad ones; if they haven't double-checked and proof-read their own blurb it doesn't auger well.

So... you and I have 'strayed into a couple of dodgy places' (I'm sure we're not alone), but our reputations aren't in tatters because of it, and I'm still proud of that winning poem!
Nothing ventured, nothing gained?

[W.F. Lantry]

Originally Posted by Ed Shacklee

I do have my standards, as the lady by the lamp post said

This reminds me of that old Groucho Marx joke: "These are my principles. If you don't like them... I have others!"

This is really a question for Kate, who's in the next room as I type, researching journals. I'll try to give her a little nudge...

Thanks,

Bill

[Michael Cantor]

It's not rocket science, Ed, nor is it cut-and-dried (see point 4 below.)

1. Gather as much information as you can about the journal, and google anybody involved with it whose name you can find. Are they broadly published, in journals that you've heard of, or that look good and read well, or do their pub credits seem to be limited to vanity sites that are open to anybody with a pulse and a computer? Is the editor fifteen years old (this is not a good sign)? Do you like their poetry? Google, google, google. The amount of information and the sense for somebody's poetic values that you can dig up by googling is amazing. (Confession: before critting a new Sphere member, I often google them to get a feel for whom I am dealing with, background and capabilities. And I know others who do the same.)

2. I'm always partial to good graphics (okay, this one is arguably personal), whether it's a wine label or a poetry journal. If the web sight is attractive and original, and not a cookie-cutter job, if navigation is intuitive, if art supports the poems (assuming there's some initial work up) rather than calling attention to itself with overt cleverness or pixel-gimmickry, if the design is clean and poem-centric - I can be seduced.

3. Wait for the first issue. See what it reads and looks like.

4. Go with your gut.

[Jayne Osborn]

Or go for broke and just BE in the first issue! What the hell?

[Michael Cantor]

That's an individual choice, Jayne. I put a good deal of work, rework and time into whatever I write - I'm not a publishable-poem-a-day type, not even a poem-a-week type these days - and I'd prefer not to appear in a journal possibly filled with slush and gush and mediocre poetry, simply for the sake of getting into print. I'd rather wait.

[Ed Shacklee]

I confess that getting an acceptance from certain journals makes me especially happy, because I like them, so I’m glad they like my poems; or one of my poems, anyway. That’s not a small thing, to have a handful of memories like that.

But as Michael says, there are individual choices involved: not just about what journals we submit to, but what we want to get out of it. If you’ve got your cap set for a professorship, a book, or the laureate of some state or country, there must be a definite advantage to prestigious placements. However, if you’re ambitions are more modest – or you don’t really have any ambitions in that regard – then what matters most may be a clean, well-lighted place.

It may be different elsewhere than it is in the States, but I would bet that most mid-sized towns have papers with larger circulations than the biggest journals devoted to publishing poems: so as big as you get in the poetry world, it’s still kind of small beans in the way that most people see things. Admittedly, I come from Indiana, but if you told people in my family that you had a poem accepted by the New Yorker, they’d know what it was. The Paris Review? Not so much. That’s why I do favor submitting to some places (because I like them), but don’t really care about a journal’s buzz in the larger poetry world – it’s just not that big a world.

So, as for myself – though I hope to pick up something from the valuable advice others have given on this thread -- I tend to fall on the Jayne side of the road.

Best,

Ed

[Jayne Osborn]

I agree with Michael that merely getting into print certainly isn't the be-all-and-end-all; if it was, each of us would have poems in those dreadful vanity publishing books about cherished cats and dogs!

If a new site looks more than reasonable and it does get filled up with good stuff, though, it'll be great! Conversely, with a 'first-ever' event it's not the end of the world, either, if it turns out to be a bit disappointing. It's just a question of weighing up what you perceive is the 'risk'. Life is full of 'em, after all (though the consequences vary quite a lot).

Ed, you strike me as being willing to dip your toe into the water with something like The Resurrectionist, for instance. I might have another look at it myself.

I wonder what Janice thinks. She's been in hundreds of journals, and knows a thing or two about new venues.

[Roger Slater]

Ed, why not see if they take previously published work and send them some of that? I see no reason you should risk your better work on a new venture that may never manage to establish itself. Your best work can find a better home, I'm sure.