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Editor Interview: CounterPunch

Q: Describe what you publish in 25 characters or less.

A: Poems, Feral & True

Q: What other current publications (or publishers) do you admire most?

A: Paris Review, AK Press, Propaganda Press, Pirene's Fountain, Fragile Arts Quarterly, Crazyhorse

Q: If you publish writing, who are your favorite writers? If you publish art, who are your favorite artists?

A: Pablo Neruda is always at the beginning of this list for me. Other "famous" ones are Theodore Roethke, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Jim Harrison, Matsuo Basho, Elizabeth Bishop and Gary Snyder. Some "not as famous" ones are William Heyen, Meg Kearney and Gina Myers.

Q: What sets your publication apart from others that publish similar material?

A: Publishing poems weekly (every Friday) results in a lively dialogue among our writers and readers, as well as being able to enjoy a mix of timely, issue-driven work and more long-range or timeless poetry.

Q: What is the best advice you can give people who are considering submitting work to your publication?

A: One would think there's no need to repeat "read and follow the guidelines," but based on way too many submissions we receive, there apparently is. So, please, do yourself a favor: Read and follow the guidelines. Also, I have 20 tips for getting published listed at my blog, crowvoicejournal.blogspot.com.

Q: Describe the ideal submission.

A: I love receiving a poem that uses a strong economy of language, is free of cliches, and gives me the impression that the writer has worked hard to sculpt the perfect vessel to contain the soul of their idea/image/experience. I love poems that haunt me and those that have a strong sense of an inner, rather than outer, rhythm and music.

Q: What do submitters most often get wrong about your submissions process?

A: A big problem is writers who submit their work in the body of an e-mail, rather than as a .doc or .rtf attachment. Formatting is lost if I cut and paste from an e-mail, and I strive to present someone's work exactly as they intend it to be.

Q: How much do you want to know about the person submitting to you?

A: We prefer poets to include short bios, but only so we can give our readers some background and context, and possibly a way to contact the writer or visit his or her Web page. I make a point to not read a bio until after I've read and considered the work on its own merits.

Q: If you publish writing, how much of a piece do you read before making the decision to reject it?

A: I almost always read the entire poem, though there have been times that a piece is so rambling, imprecise, cliche-ridden, and long that, try as I might, I can't make it to the end.

Q: What additional evaluations, if any, does a piece go through before it is accepted?

A: With many pieces, I know fairly quickly if I want it. Some teeter on the edge for awhile. With these I keep going back to them whenever I'm reading submissions until I'm certain one way or the other. If a piece's response time is longer than usual it's a pretty good indication that it came very close.

Q: What is a day in the life of an editor like for you?

A: I go through my inbox, usually reading each poem a couple times, while generating a list of yes's and maybe's. Then I go back through this list, re-reading everything looking for (usually) three poems that play off each other in some way, whether thematically, stylistically or rhythmically, trying to put together a submission package where each piece stands on its own, yet also builds upon the others to make a stronger or more interesting whole for the reader. Then, it's the mundanity of formatting and zapping the file off to our main editor/webmaster. Then I open a beer and see what my cat's been crying about.

Q: How important do you feel it is for publishers to embrace modern technologies?

A: I think most of these things are conveniences. It's much easier to get the word out there and to interact with people across great distances. They certainly make my job easier, and as a writer, I do enjoy the quickness and ease of electronic submissions. That being said, I worry that as ease and amount of communication increase, the quality in many cases decreases. There seems to be less thought and heart behind words sent over the internet than words put on paper. It's all a double-edged sword that gets sharpened with every new innovation.