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weekly - all things Poetry

I have always harbored the theory, you can ask any of my friends, that the art of Poetry enjoys a revival only when everything else has turned to shit. There is an obvious new crowd at the reading before, during, and after every war, revolution or natural disaster. Times must be terrible in America – they are experiencing a massive revival, to the point where serious poets and editors are bemoaning the fact! Not a good sign at all, the masses are seeking new distractions – ones that have not been glossed, sanitized and stuffed down their throats. This week in The Chronicle Review, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Washington D.C,  in an article titled The New Math of Poetry by David Alpaugh, he states

“The notion that writing and performing “poetry” is the easiest way to satisfy the American itch for 15 minutes of fame has spilled out of our campuses and into the wider culture.”

This sounds good to me, coming from a country where there is an absolute total of zero appreciation for poetry. Then he goes on to say

“The new math of poetry is driven not by reader demand for great or even good poetry but by the demand of myriads of aspiring poets to experience the thrill of “publication.”

Which is a pretty distressing thing to hear – probably because it’s true. Thankfully he excludes Retort from this smothering blanket statement of implied vanity presses by continuing on to say

For those who protest that most of these thousands of journals can be dismissed as marginal—that we need pay attention to only a handful of “prestigious” ones, like Poetry and The New Yorker—may I suggest that there could be a few Blakes or Dickinsons swimming with the guppies in that wide prosodic sea? If a truly titanic poet were to appear, wouldn’t one of the less visible but more adventuresome journals—Retort Magazine, say (…) — be more likely to be his or her publisher than would status-conscious professional journals like Ploughshares and American Poetry Review? “

A glowing review!? It is true, there are certain large established ‘publishers’ of poetry that have been exploiting this for a long time – to be honest, you can judge a ‘probationary’ poet if they list one of these in their biographies. Calling someone a Probationary Poet is not necessarily an insult – by this I mean an aspiring Poet who hasn’t been published enough to learn that it means absolutely nothing if you were hoping for financial gain, or any form of recognition for your successes out in the world at large. You can quote me on this – being a published Poet gets you sometimes praised, often laid, but never paid. Invariably the praises are hollow and don’t seem to boost your book sales, and, if you don’t overdose, die of liver failure or commit suicide before you are forty you learn that the type of people who want to sleep with you because you are a poet are best avoided. At any length, I am not entirely certain if David Alpaugh was giving Retort a compliment or not, at best we are adventuresome, at worse, dismissed as marginal. I can assure you though, if Retort were ever to find itself in the position to pay the Poets, Writers and Artists that appear in its pages, that’s the first thing I’ll make sure of.

On to other poetry news – Hip Hop poet Scroobius Pip has announced that he is releasing a book of Poetry – love him, hate him, doubt that’s it’s literature, dismiss it as pop music, you still have to tip your hat that he’s giving it a go, exploring new ways to get people appreciating poems.

The Poetry Section of New York based culture magazine The Awl has a selection of 5 new poems by Paul Foster Johnson. Well worth the read.

Until next week

Thanks for reading

Brentley Frazer
Editor – Retort Magazine
editor@retortmagazine.com