[New-Poetry] Tale of two poetry mags

[jforjames at aol.com]

http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB118531832258476757.html
Fortune as Fate: The Story
Of Two Poetry Magazines
By WILLARD SPIEGELMAN
July 25, 2007; Page D12


It is neither the best of times nor the worst of times for poetry, but for Poetry the times could hardly be better. Founded in 1912 by Harriet Monroe, this Chicago-based magazine has chugged along gamely through thick and thin, a publishing venue for the unknown and the celebrated, and most notably the unknown who then become the celebrated. Poetry published some of the first poems of Ezra Pound, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams. Its most famous early entry was a strange monologue spoken by a timid, sex-obsessed J. Alfred Prufrock and written by the young, unknown T.S. Eliot.


Four years ago, Christian Wiman, then 36, took over as the magazine's new editor and helped to give the grand old lady a bit of a makeover, putting color on its cover while retaining the attractive pocket-book format. If anything, the magazine's prestige as the place everyone wants to be in has increased. Poetry receives 90,000 submissions annually and prints 300 of them. Under Mr. Wiman's leadership, subscriptions have skyrocketed from 10,000 (already an impressive number) to 30,000. This is, of course, modest compared with the numbers at People but virtually unheard of in the rarefied realm of the little magazine.



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