Editor Interview: Juniper: A Poetry Journal

Poems that resonate.

The Literary Review of Canada, The Courtland Review, Plume, Poetry, The Adroit Journal, The Paris Review, BOAAT, The Fiddlehead... and more.

When it comes to poetry, I don't necessarily think in terms of favourite poets - so much as favourite poems.
When I first started the journal and had not yet published our first issue, I listed three favourite poems: "Looking West from Laguna Beach at Night" by Charles Wright, "won’t you celebrate with me" by Lucille Clifton, and "Let Evening Come" by Jane Kenyon." But new favourites are emerging constantly. Today it's Jane Hirshfield's "The Envoy," Robyn Sarah's "Riveted," and Billy Collin's "Morning".
On Juniper's Twitter page, we sometimes tweet poems we love that we've come across. For example, "Besaydoo" by Yalie Kamara in The Adroit Journal.
All the poems published in Juniper are favourites!

I'm not sure that we're doing anything different per se than any other online poetry magazine. What is clear is that there are many poems searching for a home - and we open our doors every January, May and September. We do our best to promote our contributors and we're always looking for new ways to grow our readership.

1) Send your very best work! Send poems that really matter to you.
2) While it's nice to receive poems that "speak" to each other, we also like variety. So for example, sending poems on the same subject matter/topic may not provide enough of a variety of poems to choose from.
3) Follow the guidelines.
4) Surprise us. Take some chances in your poetry.

The ideal submission? The poems are well-crafted, surprising, delightful, moving, and awe-inspiring!

The three most common mistakes are:
1) Forgetting to list the titles of their poems in their cover letter.
2) Sending submissions outside our reading period.
3) Not including a third-person bio.

We do like to get to know our submitters, and bios are a practical and fast way to get a glimpse of the poet at work behind the scenes and/or out in the poetry community. Since we publish both emerging and established poets, we are just as proud to feature a poem in Juniper by a poet who's never been published before as we are to feature an established poet's work.

Since we ask for only three previously unpublished poems, we read every submission from beginning to end.

During the submission period, the editors pick poems of particular interest to them to read aloud at our editorial meetings. Ideally, we are looking for a consensus. At the end of the submission period, final decisions are made at our editorial meetings.

When we're open for submissions, I read submissions almost every single day. I read most submissions online, but if I see a poem that I'm particularly interested in, I will print it up and consider it on paper. I might spend several days considering one poem. It's important for me to spend time with a poem to fully appreciate it. I also compile a shortlist as I read. I have a yes, no and maybe pile, which will be in flux throughout the submission period. We also hold several editorial meetings to read and discuss poems of particular interest.

The whole issue is proofread. If there are any errors, such as typos or any questions about the text, I always query the poet to confirm/clarify if anything needs to be corrected/changed.

Yes. We send nominations for the Pushcart Prize. And we are on the list of journals consulted for the Best Canadian Poetry Series. Poems from Juniper have been published in the BCP Anthology for several years in a row.