Skip to Content

Editor Interview: Poetic Medicine

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

A: Well-crafted poetry

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

A: Word Riot, Barbaric Yawp, Hubbub, New Vilna Review, Literary Bohemian, just to name a few. I enjoy finding new and interesting poems in obscure journals. For online publications, I appreciate journals that have a clean, easy to read format and layout.

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

A: Marge Piercy, Naomi Shihab Nye, Stephen Dunn, Joy Harjo, Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, Charles Bukowski, Anne Sexton, Raymond Carver, Kimiko Hahn, Li Young Lee, Mary Oliver

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

A: Poetic Medicine started as a collection of other people's previously published poems. My goal was to make poetry more accessible - just because poets have published books doesn't mean many people are reading it. But I wanted there to be a place online where people can go to find a poem they heard once and want to re-read again. It always pleases me when I google a particular poet's name or poem title and Poetic Medicine comes up as one of the top sites for that poem.
I started publishing new work in November of 2010 because I know a lot of talented poets, and realized I wanted the opportunity to put their work out there as well. It's been really exciting to hear from so many people -- many of whom I believe found Poetic Medicine through Duotrope -- who I don't know in real life but whose work I've gotten to read and publish.

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

A: Read your poems aloud before submitting them. Do the line breaks reflect how you hear the poem in your head? Does your poem have something interesting and new to say? Is it imagery-rich? I prefer a poem that paints a picture to one that is didactic or too involved in experimenting with language to make a clear narrative.

Q: Describe the ideal submission.

A: I don't really have an idea submission. I'm interested in poems that move me and speak to me. If I think your voice and your work has potential but the particular poem doesn't speak to me, I'll write you back and tell you that -- please submit more poems to me if I do. I encourage that. I am also prone to offering minor edits on poems - if I see potential in a poem but think it needs a little cleaning up, I'll offer you feedback. I value feedback on my poems, I hope other poets value feedback on theirs.

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

A: Don't assume the gender of the editor. Or that there's more than one person sitting in her home doing this, working around a full time job.

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

A: I always publish a short bio with poems I publish. I prefer bios that say a little something about the person, not just what they've published, but I use whatever people want to send me for their bio.

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

A: I always read over poems 2-3 times, and never reject a poem without going away and coming back to it. Sometimes I like a poem better the second or third time. Sometimes I see parts that are weaker that I missed the first time.

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

A: No other additional evaluations. Just me. I do prefer to space out how often I publish a particular author, since I only feature one new poem a week.

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

A: I download all the new submissions and put them into my "Submissions" folder on my desktop. I enter the author's name and date submitted into my Excel tracking sheet. At some later date (I have a full time job and a family and a social life) I read each poem over. If I immediately love it, I drop the author a note right away. If I'm not sure, I save it for a second or third re-reading. I try to respond to all submissions within a few weeks, a month tops.

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

A: I believe the internet has the power to make poetry much more accessible than literary print journals. As much as I love them, they are costly to print and costly to buy and poorly distributed. When someone publishes a poem online, it likely remains there forever.