Creating Order

In The White Space Inside the Poem, Susan Grimm addresses the question of order: specifically, in what order should a poet arrange their poems?

• Is Order Important?

Of course, she is coming back to a subject she has addressed before: Ordering the Storm: How to put together a book of poems. And others have looked at the subject as well: the helicopter view, the mix-tape strategy.

You can order by theme, by date, by alternating long and short, or alternating serious and frivolous poems. You can put similar-themed poems next to each other, or you can sprinkle them out, or bookend a collection with poems on the same theme.

At a reading, I like to try to alternate the serious with the silly; the rhymed with the free.  But sometimes it's good to just find a theme and develop it.

In all, it's a question of whether a book of poetry is a selection of individual gems, or a single unified thing.  One thing, or many?  In the mix-tape view, is this a rock opera, or a collection of singles?

Anyone else have thoughts to add?

Why No?

Brian Doyle of Portland Magazine (writing in The Kenyon Review) explains: Why editors say no.


"Sometimes I daydream of having rejection slips made up for all sorts of things in life... for oleaginous politicians and other mountebanks (IF YOU TELL ONE MORE LIE I WILL COME UP THERE AND PUMMEL YOU WITH A MAMMAL)..."

Tips and Advice for Poetry Editors

Hey, I know a lot of poets, and they all write poems that are way better than the cr*p I see in the lit reviews! I'm gonna start my own magazine, and publish really good stuff! --Ever had that thought?

Well, time was that starting a zine was tough-- you had to know layup, typesetting, printing, distribution... but these days word-processing and the internet, along with print on demand publishing, makes it easy to start a 'zine, or edit an anthology.

Oddly, although there's far too much advice around on how to write poetry, it's a lot harder to find much advice around on how to be a poetry editor. But, if you really wanna be a poetry editor, you might first, check out the wisdom from Elizabeth Barrette's blog The Wordsmith's Forge, with some tips:

"So you want to be a poetry editor"

Once you've started it, she follows it up with "Affordable ways to attract contributors". (Much of which advice comes down to "treat contributors nicely"-- good advice, I can tell you!) And, if that's not enough, she has a list of links of Resources for Editing Poetry.

Go to it!