Editor Interview: Prudence Dispatch

Insular Poems

We admire print poetry journals and books that use the tactile nature of their editions, together with their chosen typeface and composition of text, to bring out the best in their poets' work. Dorothy Lasky's The Shining, published by Wave Books in 2023, is an example of what we mean. Jennifer Nelson's On the Way to the Paintings of Forest Robberies, published by Fence Books in 2025, is another, very different, example.

Oof, it is hard to choose. Let me say that Paul Muldoon is a poet I often come back to. He was a guest speaker at a poetry class I took in college, and I've followed his work for decades. In fiction, I am one of those many adult fans of Arthur Ransome books (e.g., Swallows and Amazons), for the stories; for the glory of the words themselves, Carson McCullers rises high for me.

Well, my two grown daughters and I select the poems for publication, and my wife helps with the copy editing, so it is a family business. The journal is inspired by and published from a quirky place called Prudence Island, in the middle of Narragansett Bay, with a long history including half ownership by an ancestor in the 1600s. We spend a lot of time there, and we think a lot about the place and the ideas it generates. The journal is very much tied to the island.

We tend to like shorter poems. We don't love poems about poetry, or about writing. We like poems that reflect things that have a real, physical manifestation, and we like when poets tie those things to specific emotional reactions. We like poems that take risks, that transgress, that say things that are tough to say. Every editor and every journal is different. We like to make a home for some poems, but we cannot be a home for all poems, and some poems we decline are nonetheless outstanding.

Fits on one page. Addresses nature in some way. But does not stop at nature. Uses nature to get into the soul.

Honestly, we don't see a lot that's wrong. Don't send us more than three poems. Observe our submissions windows. Be kind if we get behind schedule. Withdraw nimbly if you need to.

So, we made a decision not to focus on bios. We do not print bios in the journal. We are open to biographical information in cover letters, but we don't pay heavy attention to it. We want the poems to do the work. When we look back at our selections after the fact, we see that we've picked a really diverse and interesting set of poets across many metrics, and it makes us happy that the poems themselves led us there.

Three readers read all poems in full multiple times. That said, there are definitely poems that we lean into or away from in the first lines.

None, really. Three readers read all submissions multiple times and make independent selections. If the same poem gets picked by all three, it's in. If it gets picked by two, high likelihood. If it gets picked by one, that reader gets to force a couple such poems in, but not all make it. In the end, we will publish probably 10-25% of "3 picks," 60-75% of "2 picks," and 15-30% of "1 picks." Our overall acceptance rate is in the 5-8% range.

I read the poems in longer sessions. I might start by reading published poems, to warm up, because I don't think it's fair to read submitted work cold, especially on a first read. If I am reading 100 poems in a session, I might mark a third of those for further consideration. Later, probably a whole other day, I'll read all of those poems again without looking at that first list of selections. Usually the two sets of selections align mostly, but there will definitely be some differences. A third session will force me to winnow the highlights of the first reads to something like 10% of the submissions. That 10% will go into the matrix to compare to selections of the other editors.

Very little. Sometimes formatting to make the work fit the page. We do not show the final version to the poets for reasons of logistics, but because we do not edit much if at all, that is not a problem. Any big change we'd run by the poet specifically.

We plan to nominate for the Pushcart in 2026.

We fund it ourselves for now. We do not charge for submissions, and we provide 2 copies of the printed issue to each poet. We cover costs of printing, mailing, advertising, web site, etc. We charge $10 for the printed issue (other than free copies) and sell online and through local bookstores; we do not make any profit, but we love it when expenses are offset!

Social media, online advertising, print advertising, earned media, local bookshops. We're also hosting a launch event for Issue No. 2, readings from the poets who are local at a local bookshop.