Editor Interview: Bluepepper

Poetry with bite.

Cordite poetry journal, Cortland Review, verity la

The East Europeans - Czeslaw Milosz, Zbigniew Herbert, Americans like Berryman, Australian 68-ers such as Robert Adamson and Michael Dransfield.

As our motto implies, we tend towards poetry with lots of colour and noise and bite, being keenly aware of the conveyor belt of the writing schools and the amorphous mass of writers it produces right across the Anglosphere.

Cast a glance over it first. So often we receive submissions from writers who have obviously not even bothered to read the submission guidelines, let alone bothered to get a sense of the community they are seeking to enter.

Anything fresh and alive with a sting in its tail. And certainly nothing accompanied by a page-length CV. I am not offering employment and would prefer to let the writing speak for itself.

Sending their work in an attachment! Such submissions (unless there has been some rare prior arrangement) are immediately deleted from our inbox.

A little bit about their life, if it is interesting. Like I said before, no page-length CV's. Maybe a few previous publication credits so we know they are legit.

All of it unless it quickly becomes apparent it is not for us. I still get work texted to me, not sent, but actually texted there and then and sent to me. That goes straight to the bin.

We run a bit of a background check if we aren't familiar with the author. You can never be too careful these days re plagiarism and appropriation. Occasionally a piece will get held back until the "fit" seems right, but we pride ourselves on our quick turnover.

Wake up, coffee, inbox. Usually done by 10am. As much as I love my wines, I have learnt never to edit under the influence of anything stronger than coffee. Fortunately Australia has very very good coffee! Perhaps unfortunately it also has very very good wines!

Usually we simply correct any typos and perhaps the occasional spelling or grammatical error, allowing for differences between American and Australian spelling. The poets we publish are rarely in need of much help otherwise. They know what they want to say and we simply provide them with a platform to say it.