Rachel’s Favorite Online Journals
Lately I’ve been reading a lot of online journals. It’s a faster, easier, cheaper way of seeing what’s being published in the poetry world. Standard print journals like Poetry and American Poetry Review are, of course, wonderful – but again, they’re expensive and slow to come (being published once every two months). I’m impatient. And online, there is an infinite variety of journals to choose from - instant gratification. So here are a few of my favorite, in no particular order (well, actually, in alphabetical order):
Autumn Sky (www.autumnskypoetry.com): Run by Christine Klocek-Lim, this is a quarterly journal publishing 10 poems per issue. The layout is simple: a base navigation page with links to each poem. The journal is aesthetically pleasing and uncluttered. The editor doesn’t seem to have a particular taste in style or content, as I’ve seen a pretty wide range of poems.
Some of my favorites:
from issue #4:
Laurel K. Dodge, “No Place Like”
Lacie Clark, “Little Observer”
from issue #6:
Mary Alexandra Agner, “The Shield of Thetis”
Michael Baker, “Tuesdays in New Jersey”
Larina Warnock, “Long Drive to Portland”
Boxcar Poetry Review (www.boxcarpoetry.com): Editor Neil Aitken heads this one up, combining the works of established writers with the voices of newcomers. The journal features a simple table of contents, and allows navigation from each poem to the next without surfing back to the main page. Also included are a few photographs, although the focus is mainly on the poems. The journal features around 12 poems per issue, and is published every other month. I’ve seen both formal and free verse poems, again spanning a pretty wide range of subjects.
Some favorites include:
from July 2007:
Michelle Bitting, “4 Sentenced for Smashing Bluebird Houses”
Karen Weyant, “Why Men In Factories Should Never Write Love Stories”
from May 2007:
Tolu Ogunlesi, “On Reading ‘A Wedding In Hell’ by Charles Simic”
Joe Wilkins, “North Carolina by Greyhound: First Christmas after the Funeral”
Shit Creek Revie (www. shitcreekreview.com): Edited by Paul Stevens, Nigel Holt and, beginning with the next issue, Angela France, this quarterly journal is looking for original, high quality poetry (aren’t they all?), with a bias toward formalism. This, however, is no dismissal of free verse whatsoever – in fact, they publish plenty of it. The layout is easy to navigate, but it sure looks complicated to do – each issue is loosely themed, at least in terms of art – issue #4 is the Sears Roebuck theme. Verrrry interesting. They do occasionally request themed-works, so for issue #5 (due out in October), the editors are soliciting intepretations of horror.
Again, some favorites:
from issue #1:
Julie Carter, “Sprung”
Anna Evans, “Sonnenizio on a Line from Millay”
from issue #2:
Jee Leong Koh, “If the Fire Is In Your Apartment”
from issue #3:
Lee Harlin Bahan, “Best Ladies’ Room on US 50”
Stirring (www.sundress.net/stirring): This journal is edited by Erin Elizabeth Smith who, along with her associate poetry editors, has an amazing eye for poems with teeth. The journal requests poems that “resonate,” and they publish a remarkably few per issue (somewhere around five). The thing is, though, that after reading an issue of Stirring, I feel full – like I’ve eaten a fantastically rich meal. This journal certainly is not empty calories.
Some favorites:
from August 2007:
Michelle A Ladwig, “Leslie Caron’s Alter Ego”
Jessalyn Wakefield, “Chestnut”
from June 2007:
Antonia Clark, “Marseilles”
from April 2007:
Kristy Bowen, “Open Letter to the Muse”
Wicked Alice (www.sundress.net/wickedalice): Kristy Bowen edits this journal, focused on the female experience in this world. This has long been one of my favorites. Kristy picks work that is complicated, layered, beautiful, full of intense language and images. So many of these poems have stayed with me for so long; in fact, Ona Gritz’s poem “Last Tango in Paramus” is a poem that I’ve never forgotten. (I think Heather Overby’s poem “The Defenestration of Juliette Lewis” might well have the same effect.)
And some favorites:
from Summer 2007:
Heather Overby, “The Defenstration of Juliette Lewis”
Valerie Loveland, “Anatomy Test, Eleventh Grade”
Ray Succre, “Appending Fay”
from Spring 2005:
Ona Gritz, “Last Tango in Paramus”
Right - so happy reading!
4 Comments
Those zines are among my favorites, too, Rachel.
I’m enjoying your blogs. And congrats on your acceptance from Finishing Line–also one of my fave small presses. They did a painstaking job with my first book.
Thanks for the recommendations! Wicked Alice and Stirring, however, appear to be down . . . and it’s unfortunate that none of the sites seem to have RSS feeds.
Thanks for the recommendations, Rachel; I didn’t know about any of these zines. And frankly, that is part of my concern with such publications, that they are so obscure. But then again, the more mainstream poetry journals such as Poetry and American Poetry Review are so exclusive that they risk almost as much irrelevance. I guess that is precisely what comes with a more democratic platform like the internet, a highly fragmented audience… I have a folder full of bookmarks for similar zines that I’ve come across, but I have to admit that I rarely visit most of them. Still, I always wondered about other people’s reading habits when it comes to poetry; so I’d love to hear from more people about this.
Rachel, what a surprise to find one of my poems on a favorites list! I’m glad you enjoyed “Long Drive to Portland” and wanted to congratulate you on your own success.
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