It's National Poetry Month; Therefore, Buy Books. Part V.

This final week I'm posting two new anthologies and three of my favorite poetry journals. All of these are worthy of our support and guaranteed to give you many hours of pleasure.


Helen Vitoria, editor
Thrush Poetry Journal: an anthology of the first two years

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Poems included in Thrush Poetry Journal: an Anthology of the first two years are the complete works from the Thrush Poetry Journal Online Editions. Poets include Maureen Alsop, Mary Biddinger, Karen Skolfield, Rachel McKibbens, Simon Perchik, William Greenway, Philip Dacey, and dozens of others.


Read "Dear Thanatos," by Traci Brimhall
Read sample poems by Ada Limon






MaryAnn Miller, editor
St. Peters B-List: Contemporary Poems Inspired by the Saints (Ave Maria Press)

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This soul-stirring collection of more than one hundred poems—composed by a wide variety of contemporary award-winning poets—awakens readers to the beauty and humor in the broken, imperfect striving of the saints for holiness.

 Featuring poems by Dana Gioia, Mary Karr, Paul Mariani, and Kate Daniels, as well as many new and emerging poets, this anthology invites readers to view the saints as they've never imagined them, reaching for the sacred, doubting, bumbling, and then trying again. The collection features wide-ranging poems on ordinary topics, such as a mother trying to get her newborn to fall asleep, an older brother concerned about the marriage of his sister, a lonely man trying to meet a woman in a bar, and a burn victim's compassion for a small child.         
                                                                       —publisher's note

Read “Miracle Blanket” by Erika Meitner
Read “Limbo: Altered States” by Mary Karr





Poet Lore

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If Poet Lore has a character that’s remained constant across generations of editors, it’s not a shared aesthetic but an openness to discovery. And in that way, we think it’s true to say that Charlotte Porter and Helen Clarke’s founding principles have guided the journal’s editorial stewardship all this time.  In the years we've worked together as an editorial team, many poets we know and admire have told us that their first published poems appeared in Poet Lore. What these poets have in common isn't a way of writing. What they have in common is the fact that an editor at Poet Lore read their early work with the respect it deserved.
                                              —editor's statement









 Southern Poetry Review

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SPR is the second oldest poetry journal in the region, with its origins in Florida and subsequent moves to North Carolina and now Georgia. Continuing the tradition of editorial openness and response to writers that began with Guy Owen in 1958, SPR publishes poems from all over the country as well as from abroad and maintains a worldwide readership. Past issues feature work from Chana Bloch, Billy Collins, Alice Friman, David Hernandez, Andrew Hudgins, Maxine Kumin, Heather McHugh, Sue William Silverman, R. T. Smith, Eric Trethewey, and Cecilia Woloch.

                                                 —editor's statement








 The Cincinnati Review

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Since its inception in 2003, The Cincinnati Review has published many promising new and emerging writers, as well as Pulitzer Prize winners and Guggenheim and MacArthur fellows. Poetry and prose from our pages have been selected to appear in the annual anthologies Best American Short Stories, Best American Poetry, New Stories from the South, New Stories from the Midwest, Best New American Voices, Best American Essays, Best American Fantasy, Best American Mystery Stories, Best Creative Nonfiction, and The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses.

                                                   —publisher's statement

Give the Gift of Poetry

I have an early gift-giving suggestion for you: A subscription to the print journal, Poet Lore. At 125 years old, Poet Lore is the oldest literary journal in this country. It is also one of the best, turning out outstanding poetry in issue after issue. I've been a subscriber for years. Other journals I subscribe to I sometimes drop for a while and move onto other journals, perhaps later returning. I wouldn't consider dropping Poet Lore, not even for one issue.

Here are some reasons why you should treat yourself and the people you love to a subscription:
1. A subscription is only $10. Really, what other gift of such value can you get for that price? That price, however, is going up on January 1, so act now. Do not procrastinate.

2. The journal comes out twice a year, spring and fall. There's enough in each journal to keep you happy for many hours, yet not so much that you feel overwhelmed by the size of the issue.

3. This is one of the few print journals that is exclusively poetry. You're not going to have to flip through the short stories and essays to get to the poems. It's all poems. I have nothing against prose, but I love having this one journal that's such a feast of poetry.

4. The selection of poems is eclectic. If you like well-written poems in a variety of styles, poems that tell stories, poems that touch the heart, poems that take some risks while not sacrificing clarity, then this is your journal.

5. Each journal is organized in much the same way that a poetry book is, i.e., with the poems strategically placed rather than in alphabetical order or according to some other arbitrary plan. This means a big investment of time and brain power on the editors' part, but provides enormous pleasure for the reader. Each issue is like a quilt, each poem fitting in just the right place and adding to the overall design.

6. The back section of each issue contains a generous number of reviews of recent poetry collections.

7. An Added Bonus: This journal stimulates the production of new work. I never leave an issue without having begun one or more new poems of my own. There might be a poem that begs me to imitate it, that makes use of a technique I haven't seen before and would like to try. There might be a poem with a line that demands some kind of response. There might be a poem with an image that evokes images in my own brain.

So what are you waiting for? Hop on over to Poet Lore and place your order.