Poetry, published in Chicago, Illinois since 1912, is one of the leading monthly poetry journals in the English-speaking world. Flag Seal Nickname: The Windy City Motto: Urbs In Horto (Latin: City in a Garden), I Will Location Location in Chicagoland and northern Illinois Coordinates , Government Country State Counties United States Illinois Cook, DuPage Mayor Richard M. Daley (D) Geographical characteristics Area     City 606. ... The Chinese poem Quatrain on Heavenly Mountain by Emperor Gaozong (Song Dynasty) Poetry (from the Greek , poiesis, making or creating) is a form of art in which language is used for its aesthetic qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its ostensible meaning. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...

The publication, edited by Christian Wiman, has a circulation of almost 30,000. The magazine prints about 300 poems a year and gets about 90,000 submissions.^[1]

Poetry is financed, since 2003, with a two hundred million dollar grant from Ruth Lilly.

History

The magazine was founded in 1912 by Harriet Monroe, who was working as an art critic of the Chicago Tribune. She wrote at that time: // H. E. Monro edits The Poetry Review, journal of the Poetry Recital Society Harriet Munroe founds Poetry: A Magazine of Verse in Chicago (with Ezra Pound as foreign editor); in 1912 she described its policy this way: Ezra Pound, during a meeting with his one-time fiancee Hilda Doolittle in... Harriet Monroe (1860-12-23 – 1936-09-26) was an American editor, scholar, literary critic, and patron of the arts. ... The Bath, a painting by Mary Cassatt (1844-1926). ... The word critic comes from the Greek κριτικός, kritikós - one who discerns, which itself arises from the Ancient Greek word κριτής, krités, meaning a person who offers reasoned judgement or analysis, value judgement, interpretation, or observation. ... The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois and owned by the Tribune Company. ...

"The Open Door will be the policy of this magazine—may the great poet we are looking for never find it shut, or half-shut, against his ample genius! To this end the editors hope to keep free from entangling alliances with any single class or school. They desire to print the best English verse which is being written today, regardless of where, by whom, or under what theory of art it is written. Nor will the magazine promise to limit its editorial comments to one set of opinions."

In a circular she sent to poets, Monroe said the magazine offered

"First, a chance to be heard in their own place, without the limitations imposed by the popular magazine. In other words, while the ordinary magazines must minister to a large public little interested in poetry, this magazine will appeal to, and it may be hoped, will develop, a public primarily interested in poetry as an art, as the highest, most complete expression of truth and beauty."^[1]

The magazine discovered such poets as Gwendolyn Brooks, James Merrill, and John Ashbery.^[1] T. S. Eliot's first professionally published poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," was first published by Poetry. Gwendolyn Brooks (June 7, 1917 – December 3, 2000) was an award-winning African American woman poet. ... poet James Merrill, age 30, in a 1957 publicity photograph for The Seraglio James Ingram Merrill (March 3, 1926 - February 6, 1995) was a Pulitzer Prize winning American writer, increasingly regarded as one of the most important 20th century poets in the English language. ... John Ashbery John Ashbery (born July 28, 1927) is an American poet. ... Thomas Stearns Eliot, OM (September 26, 1888 – January 4, 1965), was a poet, dramatist and literary critic. ... The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, a poem by T. S. Eliot, marked the start of his career as one of the twentieth centurys most influential poets. ...

Contributors have included Ezra Pound, William Butler Yeats, Rabindranath Tagore, Marianne Moore, Charlotte Wilder, Wallace Stevens, H. D., William Carlos Williams, Basil Bunting, Yone Noguchi, Carl Rakosi, Dorothy Richardson, Peter Viereck, Louis Zukofsky, Charles Reznikoff and Carl Sandburg, among others. The magazine was instrumental in launching the Imagist and Objectivist poetic movements. Ezra Pound in 1913. ... W.B. Yeats in Dublin on 24 January 1908. ... Rabindranath Tagore ( ; Bangla: ; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941), also known by the sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali poet, Brahmo Samaj (syncretic Hindu monotheist) philosopher, visual artist, playwright, composer, and novelist whose works reshaped Bengali literature and music in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. ... Marianne Moore photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1948 Marianne Moore (December 11, 1887 - February 5, 1972) was a Modernist American poet and writer. ... Charlotte Wilder (1898-1980) was an American poet and the eldest sister of author Thornton Wilder and Janet Wilder Dakin. ... Wallace Stevens Wallace Stevens (October 2, 1879 – August 2, 1955 in poetry) was a major American Modernist poet. ... H.D. in the mid 1910s Hilda Doolittle (September 10, 1886 - September 27, 1961), better known by the pen name H.D., was an American poet, novelist and memoirist. ... William Carlos Williams Dr. William Carlos Williams (sometimes known as WCW) (September 17, 1883 – March 4, 1963), was an American poet closely associated with modernism and Imagism. ... Basil Cheesman Bunting (March 3, 1900 – 1985) was a British modernist poet. ... Yone Noguchi Yone Noguchi, born (and known in Japan as) Yonejiro Noguchi (野口米次郎 Noguchi Yonejirō, 1875 - 1947), was an influential writer of poetry, fiction, essays, and criticism in both English and Japanese. ... Carl Rakosi (November 6, 1903 – June 24, 2004) was the last surviving member of the Objectivist poets. ... Dorothy Miller Richardson (17 May 1873 - 17 June 1957) was the first writer to publish an English-language novel using what was to become known as the stream-of-consciousness technique. ... Peter Viereck (1916- ), is professor emeritus of history at Mount Holyoke College, a noted poet, and influential political thinker. ... The cover of the 1978 edition of Zukofskys long poem A. Louis Zukofsky (January 23, 1904 – May 12, 1978) was one of the most important second-generation American modernist poets. ... Charles Reznikoff (August 31, 1894 - January 22, 1976) was the poet for whom the term Objectivist was first coined. ... Carl Sandburg in 1955 Carl August Sandburg (January 6, 1878 – July 22, 1967) was an American poet, historian, novelist, balladeer, and folklorist. ... Ezra Pound, one of the prime movers of Imagism. ... William Carlos Williams, who was the only poet to be published as both an Objectivist and an Imagist The Objectivist poets were a loose-knit group of second-generation Modernists who emerged in the 1930s. ...

A.R. Ammons once said, "the histories of modern poetry in America and of Poetry in America are almost interchangeable, certainly inseparable." ^[1]

However, in the early years, East Coast newspapers made fun of the magazine, with one calling the idea "Poetry in Porkopolis".^[1]

Henry Rago joined the magazine in 1954 and became editor the following year. // Robert Creeley founds and edits the Black Mountain Review Jack Kerouac reads Dwight Goddards A Buddhist Bible, which will influence him greatly. ... // The Group, a British poetry movement, starts meeting in London with gatherings taking place once a week, on Friday evenings, at first at Hobsbaums flat and later at the house of Edward Lucie-Smith. ...

Lilly grant

In 2003, the magazine received a grant from the estate of Ruth Lilly originally said to be worth over $100 million, but which grew to be about $200 million when it was given out. The grant added to her already substantial prior contributions.

The magazine learned in 2001 that it would be getting the grant. Before announcing the gift, the magazine waited a year and reconfigured its governing board, which had been concerned with fund-raising. The Poetry Foundation was created, and Joseph Parisi, who had been editor of the magazine for two decades, volunteered to head the foundation. Christian Wiman, a young critic and poet, succeeded to the editorship in 2003. Parisi resigned from the foundation after a few months.^[1] The Poetry Foundation is a Chicago-based American foundation created to promote poetry in the wider culture. ...

The new board used a recruiting agency to find John Barr, a rich executive and published poet, to head the foundation.^[1]

Since receiving the grant, the magazine has increased its budget. For instance, poets who previously received two dollars per line now get ten.^[1]

Wiman's editorship

Since Wiman took over, and partly thanks to direct-mail campaigns, the magazine's circulation has grown from 11,000 to almost 30,000. The look of the magazine was redesigned in 2005.^[1]

Wiman has "expressed in print a stern preference for formal poems, and a disdain for what he calls 'broken-prose confessionalism' and 'the generic, self-obsessed free-verse poetry of the seventies and eighties", according to a New Yorker magazine article.^[1] The New Yorker is an American magazine that publishes reportage, criticism, essays, cartoons, poetry and fiction. ...

One of his top goals for the magazine was to get more people "talking about it," he has said. "I tried to put something in every issue that would be provocative in some way." Wiman hired several young, outspoken critics and encouraged them to be frank. In 2005, Wiman wrote in an editorial "Not only was there a great deal of obvious logrolling going on (friends reviewing friends, teachers promoting students, young poets writing strategic reviews of older poets in power), but the writing was just so polite, professional and dull [...] We wanted writers who wrote as if there were an audience of general readers out there who might be interested in contemporary poetry. that meant hiring critics with sharp opinions, broad knowledge of fields other than poetry, and some flair."^[1]

Controversial article by John Barr

In September 2006, the magazine published an essay by John Barr, head of the Poetry Foundation, titled, "American Poetry in the New Century," which became controversial, generating many complaints and some support. After having heard a talk Barr gave on the subject, Wiman had asked Barr to submit it to the magazine.^[1]

"American poetry is ready for something new because our poets have been writing in the same way for a long time now. There is fatigue, something stagnant about the poetry being written today," Barr wrote. He added that poetry is nearly absent from public life, and poets too often write with only other poets in mind, failing to write for a greater public. Although M.F.A. programs have expanded greatly, the result has been more poetry but also more limited variety. He wrote that poetry has become "neither robust, resonant, nor — and I stress this quality — entertaining."^[1]

Barr suggested that poets get experience outside the academy. "If you look at drama in Shakespeare's day, or the novel in the last century, or the movie today, it suggests that an art enters its golden age when it is addressed to and energized by the general audiences of its time."^[1]

Dana Goodyear, in an article in The New Yorker reporting and commenting on Poetry magazine and The Poetry Foundation, wrote that Barr's essay was directly counter to the ideas of the magazine's founder, Harriet Monroe, eight decades before. In a 1922 editorial, Monroe wrote about newspaper verse: "These syndicated rhymers, like the movie-producers, are learning that it pays to be good, [that one] gets by giving the people the emotions of virtue, simplicity and goodness, with this program paying at the box-office." Monroe wanted to protect poets from the demands of popular taste, Goodyear wrote, while Barr wants to induce poets to appeal to the public. Goodyear acknowledged that popular interest in poetry has collapsed since the time of Monroe's editorial.^[1] The New Yorker is an American magazine that publishes reportage, criticism, essays, cartoons, poetry and fiction. ...

Wiman says he agrees with a lot of what Barr says about contemporary poetry.^[1]

Notes and references

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p} Goodyear, Dana, "The Moneyed Muse: What can two hundred million dollars do for poetry?", article, The New Yorker, February 19 and February 26 double issue, 2007

• Peter Jones (ed.): Imagist Poetry (Penguin, 1972).
• Historical note at the magazine Web site
• Boston Globe article on grant

The New Yorker is an American magazine that publishes reportage, criticism, essays, cartoons, poetry and fiction. ... February 19 is the 50th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... February 26 is the 57th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the Anno Domini (common) era. ...

External links

• Poetry magazine website
• Poetry Foundation website
• Poetry Magazine (1911-1962) Records at the University of Chicago