Hey, what’s going through the minds of the editors reading your poetry submissions? Three readers from Phoebe–the Poetry Instigator’s journal of the week, responsible for Prompt 1.8–enlighten.

Kathy, reader (poetry):

I’m interested in thinking about whether I’m the same reader when I read submissions for Phoebe as when I read at my own discretion. The first thing that I want to acknowledge seems pretty obvious: the construct of reading *for* any specific purpose shapes one’s reading.

Someone famous and smart whose name I don’t remember once said that mistakes reside in readers as much as writers. This means that if the reader’s context lends itself to the task of “error” finding, i.e. being a teacher, editor, or critic, more errors will seem to be present in the work simply by virtue of being looked for.

I find I need to consciously correct for this tendency as I read Phoebe submissions; that is, I need to try to give these poems the same credibility (initially, at least) as I would give any poem I encounter out there in the wild. When I’m successful at doing this, I think poems establish authority or lack thereof pretty quickly on their own. And if I allow the poems to stand on their own merits, I’m better able to notice moments of brilliance in even the worst poems. While these moments may not merit publication, they do allow me to flex my natural reading-as-a-writer tendencies.

That is to say, sometimes even superficially terrible poems teach me a thing or two if I let them. How about you, Aubrey and Moriah? How does your approach to reading poems for Phoebe differ from mine or from your own day-to-day reading?

Moriah, poetry editor:

If something strikes me, I read the poem again. I’m always hoping to feel something refreshing in a poem. I get bored VERY easily with a lot of poetry (contemporary especially). If something about the poem is refreshing in its tone, in its language, in its use of language, and all of this is done with purpose then I’ll probably like the poem. If I’m bored on the first run, I move on.

This last part seems to be consistent with my reading for Phoebe as well—but in the editor role I read with an eye for a few other things. If the poem gets to a second reading when I’m reading for Phoebe, I start asking questions.

• What would this poem look like on the page of the journal?
• Have we accepted other poems like it?
• Will what was striking to me be striking to other readers?
• Does the poet show a range of abilities and yet contribute poems that speak to each other interesting ways, or is this a one off amazing poem out of luck or happenstance?
• Is it refreshing (as per description of “refreshing” above)?
• Do we have a similar type of poem already in consideration that is refreshing for similar reasons? Is this one more or less striking than the other?

Aubrey, reader (poetry):

I think that many of our more critical responses to work we see coming through the Phoebe office or in our peer workshops are acts of both compassion and generosity, but perhaps not in the conventional senses of these words; as writers, we all know that the greatest gift is a fair read, and an honest assessment of our work, where false praise is useless and even detrimental. I think the literary journal that is able to read work and actually give feedback to some, if not all of its submissions, performs an unusual, but necessary role.

Moriah commented that submissions that take her by surprise will generally get a second read, and I think that’s a good practice in judgment as well as generosity; had we all the time in the world, these are the poems I would like to support with loads of feedback, if not publication.

It is the same in a workshop scenario for me — generous encouragement of a poem that takes risks, or employs fresh language or a unique vision seems essential, particularly if these elements are not yet perfected or realized.

This blog, for example, doesn’t stop at posting poems; it considers and engages the notion of inspiration and the idea of audience, what I see as the biggest questions of process. So I like to think that what I’ve lost in sympathy over the years, I’ve gained in capacity for constructive feedback. And more importantly, that this feedback shows greater allegiance to the work and vision of the poet, and less to my own pursuit of reading pleasure.

BIOS:

Although K. Goodkin moved to the Washington D.C. area more than a year ago, she is still adjusting to Eastern Time. She currently teaches at George Mason University, where she is pursuing an MFA in poetry and acting as a reader for the literary journal Phoebe. Her poetry has previously appeared in Fourteen Hills, Wicked Alice, and Blossombones.

Moriah L. Purdy is a New England native and is currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at George Mason University. She is the Poetry Editor for Phoebe: A Journal of Literature and Art, housed at Mason. She was recently awarded a Thesis Fellowship and has been nominated for Best New Poets.

Aubrey Lenahan was born in New York City and holds a BA in English from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Formerly a fiction and art editor for the Backwards City Review and grant-writer for a visual arts non-profit, she translates Estonian poetry and teaches at George Mason University, where she is an MFA candidate in poetry.