Editor Interview: The Bond Street Review

Non-pretentious poetry

The New Inquiry
Poetry Superhighway
Rattle

far, far too many to list but here's a sampling ...
Paul Auster
e.e. cummings
Dorothy Parker
Billy Collins
Michael Chabon
Cornelious Eady
Joshua Ferris
Jennifer Egan
Sarah Ruhl

That we fall way more in love with what the piece is saying than necessarily how it is being said - recreating the wheel just for the sake of recreating the wheel means absolutely nothing to us. Of course, bad poetry is still bad poetry and should be considered (and treated) as such ...

As with most other publications, read previous issues to see what we are drawn to - and then send us what you think is your best work regardless of what you've just read. We love being asked to reconsider our opinions and prejudices.
And keep submitting - we've all been rejected way more times than we've been accepted and tenacity goes a long way in this life. Take criticism in the spirit in which it is offered - and never take it personally.

One that hints at a breadth of experiences, that shows that your antenna are always up and always looking for another point of view. One that shows that you are actually engaged in the world and makes us want to sit down for a few beers and talk with you deep into the night.

No much, actually - our submission guidelines are pretty straight-forward so most submissions adhere to the process. Although we'd love to get more and more submissions from more and more writers.

Cover letters don't do much for us - a BRIEF list of publication credits is always interesting since it gives us a sense of who else has enjoyed your work in the past (and clues us in to other publications that we may not have know about.) A friend of mine once said that she rarely sets up a piece before she reads for an audience since, untimely, the piece needs to stand on its own anyway. I have since adopted a similar view about my own readings as well as submissions - the words need to do the work. No set-up can ever do the job of the words themselves.

Honestly, I can usually get a sense pretty quickly but always read each piece through to the end out of respect to the writer as I would expect the same treatment from another editor. And sometimes it pays off, sometimes the last word/line/paragraph casts everything that came before it in a new light.

There are two of us who edit The Bond Street Review so usually a decision has to be unanimous but if one of us feels particularly strongly about a given piece and can make enough of a case to the other, it'll make it's way into print.
And each piece gets a minimum of two readings from each of us - sometimes a mood, environment, etc. will influence how a piece is received (for both good and bad) - two readings allows us to experience the work a few different times and then make the decision accordingly.

Well, as I work a day job (at a theatre, so I do lots of reading there as well), am in a serious relationship, have an 18 year-old son and a pretty full life all the way around, I try to attend to the editing duties as much as possible - usually ends up being about 5 hours a week on average. There is no "day-in-the-life" kind of system - maybe more of a "month-in-the-life".
Of course, it all picks up as we get near our two publications dates (Winter issue in January and Summer issue in August) where we're doing a lot of layout work, editing, proofing, etc. The Bond Street Review is published along with chapbooks and a broadside series so it's less a matter of clocking in and out each day and more a matter of what particular project is in front of us.