Poetry (magazine)

{{Short description|American poetry magazine founded in 1912}} {{Use American English|date=April 2026}} {{Use mdy dates|date=March 2025}} {{Italic title}}

{{Infobox magazine | title = Poetry | image_file = Poetry magazine September 2024 cover.jpg |image_size = 180 | image_caption = September 2024 cover | editor_title = Editor-in-chief | editor = Adrian Matejka | previous_editor = Harriet Monroe (1912–1936) Morton Dauwen Zabel (1936–1937) George Dillon (1937–1942) Group editorship (1942–1949) Hayden Carruth (1949–1950) Karl Shapiro (1950–1955) Henry Rago (1955–1969) Daryl Hine (1969–1977) John Frederick Nims (1978–1983) Joseph Parisi (1983–2003) Christian Wiman (2003–2013) Don Share (2013–2020) Guest editors (2021–2022): Esther Belin, Su Cho, Suzi F. Garcia, Ashley M. Jones, Srikanth "Chicu" Reddy | frequency = Ten issues annually | circulation = 30,000<ref name="Goodyear2007">{{cite magazine |last=Goodyear |first=Dana |title=The Moneyed Muse |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/02/19/the-moneyed-muse |magazine=The New Yorker |date=February 19, 2007 |access-date=April 27, 2026}}</ref> | circulation_year = 2007 | category = Poetry | company = Poetry Foundation | founder = Harriet Monroe | firstdate = {{start date and age|1912|10}} | country = United States | based = Chicago, Illinois, U.S. | language = English | website = {{URL|https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine|Poetry Magazine}} | issn = 0032-2032 }}

'''''Poetry''''' is an American poetry magazine founded in Chicago in 1912 by Harriet Monroe. Originally titled '''''Poetry: A Magazine of Verse''''', it is published by the Poetry Foundation. The magazine publishes ten print issues annually and also publishes poetry, prose, translations, and archival material online.<ref name="PF-subscribe">{{cite web |title=Subscriptions |url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/subscribe |website=Poetry Foundation |access-date=April 27, 2026}}</ref><ref name="PF-about-magazine">{{cite web |title=About Poetry Magazine |url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/about |website=Poetry Foundation |access-date=April 27, 2026}}</ref>

''Poetry'' became one of the most influential English-language poetry magazines of the twentieth century. ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' states that, during Monroe's editorship, it "quickly became the world's leading English-language poetry journal" and describes it as "the principal organ for modern poetry of the English-speaking world".<ref name="Britannica-Monroe">{{cite encyclopedia |title=Harriet Monroe |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Harriet-Monroe |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |access-date=April 27, 2026}}</ref><ref name="Britannica-Poetry">{{cite encyclopedia |title=Poetry |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Poetry-American-magazine |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |access-date=April 27, 2026}}</ref> Its early issues published work by poets including T. S. Eliot, H.D., Ezra Pound, Robert Frost, Marianne Moore, Langston Hughes, and Rabindranath Tagore.<ref name="PF-history">{{cite web |title=A History of Poetry Magazine |url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/history |website=Poetry Foundation |access-date=April 27, 2026}}</ref><ref name="UChicago-records">{{cite web |title=Guide to the Poetry: A Magazine of Verse Records 1895–1961 |url=https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/scrc/findingaids/view.php?eadid=ICU.SPCL.POETRY |website=University of Chicago Library |access-date=April 27, 2026}}</ref> Archival records for the magazine are held by research libraries including the University of Chicago Library and Indiana University's Lilly Library.<ref name="UChicago-records" /><ref name="Indiana-records">{{cite web |title=Poetry mss., 1954–2002 |url=https://archives.iu.edu/catalog/InU-Li-VAA3754 |website=Archives Online at Indiana University |access-date=April 27, 2026}}</ref>

In 2002, Ruth Lilly, an heir to the Eli Lilly pharmaceutical fortune and a longtime patron of poetry, gave $100 million to the Modern Poetry Association, the magazine's publisher.<ref name="PW-Lilly">{{cite web |title=Publisher of Poetry Receives $100 Million From Heir to Lilly Fortune |url=https://www.pw.org/content/publisher_poetry_receives_100_million_heir_lilly_fortune |website=Poets & Writers |date=November 20, 2002 |access-date=April 27, 2026}}</ref> The Poetry Foundation was established the following year, and the gift was later reported as worth approximately $200 million.<ref name="PF-about-foundation">{{cite web |title=About the Poetry Foundation |url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/about-us |website=Poetry Foundation |access-date=April 27, 2026}}</ref><ref name="Goodyear2007" /> Since 2022, ''Poetry'' has been edited by Adrian Matejka, the first Black editor to lead the magazine.<ref name="Matejka-PF">{{cite web |title=Adrian Matejka Joins Poetry Magazine as New Editor |url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/157892/adrian-matejka-joins-poetry-magazine-as-new-editor |website=Poetry Foundation |date=April 26, 2022 |access-date=April 27, 2026}}</ref><ref name="Matejka-AP">{{cite news |last=Italie |first=Hillel |title=Adrian Matejka will be first Black editor of Poetry magazine, which faced criticism on diversity |url=https://chicago.suntimes.com/entertainment-and-culture/2022/4/28/23045667/adrian-matejka-poetry-magazine-first-black-editor |work=Chicago Sun-Times |agency=Associated Press |date=April 28, 2022 |access-date=April 27, 2026}}</ref>

==History==

===Founding and editorial policy=== [[File:Harriet Monroe.jpg|thumb|upright|Harriet Monroe, founder and first editor of ''Poetry'']]

''Poetry: A Magazine of Verse'' was founded in Chicago in 1912 by Harriet Monroe, a poet, critic, and arts writer who wanted a magazine devoted specifically to contemporary poetry.<ref name="Britannica-Monroe" /><ref name="UChicago-records" /> In 1911, Monroe raised financial support for the publication by persuading one hundred Chicagoans to pledge $50 a year for five years.<ref name="MJP-Poetry">{{cite web |title=Poetry |url=https://modjourn.org/journal/poetry/ |website=Modernist Journals Project |access-date=May 5, 2026}}</ref>Literary scholar Ann Massa described the plan as "a bold project, if not an unlikely one", noting that the U.S. had not had a journal devoted solely to the publication and criticism of poetry and that Chicago had a reputation as difficult ground for little magazines.<ref name="Massa-Cambridge">{{cite journal |last=Massa |first=Ann |title=The Columbian Ode and Poetry, A Magazine of Verse: Harriet Monroe's Entrepreneurial Triumphs |journal=Journal of American Studies |volume=20 |issue=1 |year=1986 |pages=51–69 |doi=10.1017/S0021875800016339 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-american-studies/article/abs/columbian-ode-and-poetry-a-magazine-of-verse-harriet-monroes-entrepreneurial-triumphs/38754BA6FEBA8413EDF3EB19A28589E0 |access-date=May 5, 2026|url-access=subscription }}</ref> The magazine's motto, taken from Walt Whitman, was "to have great poets there must be great audiences too".<ref name="MJP-Poetry" /><ref name="UChicago-records" />

Monroe used the first issues to explain the magazine's purpose and editorial independence. In the inaugural issue, she argued that poetry needed "her own place, her own voice", rather than the limited space available in general-interest magazines.<ref name="Monroe-Motive">{{cite web |last=Monroe |first=Harriet |title=The Motive of the Magazine |url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/articles/58889/the-motive-of-the-magazine |website=Poetry Foundation |date=October 1912 |access-date=April 27, 2026}}</ref> The following month, Monroe wrote that "The Open Door will be the policy of this magazine" and said the editors hoped to avoid "entangling alliances with any single class or school".<ref name="Monroe-OpenDoor">{{cite web |last=Monroe |first=Harriet |title=The Open Door |url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/articles/58891/the-open-door |website=Poetry Foundation |date=November 1912 |access-date=April 27, 2026}}</ref> In a later printed appeal to poets, Monroe described the magazine as offering writers "a chance to be heard in their own place", outside the constraints of popular magazines.<ref name="Goodyear2007" />

The University of Chicago Library notes that Monroe's insistence on paying contributors and establishing an annual prize helped raise the visibility and status of poetry as a literary art.<ref name="UChicago-records" /> The Modernist Journals Project describes ''Poetry'' as both a venue for modern poetry and a forum for debate over the forms and purposes of poetry in the modern age.<ref name="MJP-Poetry" />

===Early reputation and modernism=== The magazine established its reputation in its early years by publishing a wide range of contemporary poets and by becoming a major venue for emerging modernist poetry.<ref name="Britannica-Poetry" /><ref name="PF-history" /> Literary scholar Helen Carr describes ''Poetry'' as "one of the best known of 'little magazines' of literary modernism" and as a periodical that exemplified the role of small magazines in the formation and dissemination of modernism.<ref name="Carr-Oxford">{{cite book |last=Carr |first=Helen |chapter=Poetry: A Magazine of Verse (1912–36), ‘Biggest of Little Magazines’ |editor-last=Brooker |editor-first=Peter |editor2-last=Thacker |editor2-first=Andrew |title=The Oxford Critical and Cultural History of Modernist Magazines: Volume II: North America 1894–1960 |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2012 |pages=40–60 |doi=10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199545810.003.0003 |url=https://academic.oup.com/book/27423/chapter/197263734 |access-date=April 27, 2026}}</ref> Its first issue included poems by Ezra Pound, Helen Dudley, William Vaughn Moody, Arthur Davison Ficke, Grace Hazard Conkling, and Emilia Stuart Lorimer, as well as Monroe's editorial comment "The Motive of the Magazine".<ref name="Britannica-Poetry" /><ref name="MJP-first-issue">{{cite web |title=Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, Vol. 1, No. 1 |url=https://modjourn.org/issue/bdr457327/ |website=Modernist Journals Project |access-date=April 27, 2026}}</ref> Pound later served as the magazine's foreign correspondent, helping connect Monroe's Chicago-based publication to transatlantic literary networks.<ref name="Britannica-Monroe" /><ref name="MJP-Poetry" />

In June 1915, ''Poetry'' published T. S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", which had been brought to Monroe's attention by Pound.<ref name="June1915">{{cite web |title=June 1915 |url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/issue/70350/june-1915 |website=Poetry Foundation |access-date=April 27, 2026}}</ref><ref name="TSEliot-Prufrock">{{cite web |title=Prufrock is 110 |url=https://tseliot.com/foundation/prufrock-is-110/ |website=T. S. Eliot |date=June 18, 2025 |access-date=April 27, 2026}}</ref> The magazine also published early or important work by writers including H.D., Robert Frost, Marianne Moore, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, Carl Sandburg, Langston Hughes, and Rabindranath Tagore.<ref name="PF-history" /><ref name="Britannica-Poetry" /><ref name="UChicago-records" /> ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' identifies the magazine with both the Chicago literary renaissance and Imagism, and describes it as having become "the principal organ for modern poetry of the English-speaking world".<ref name="Britannica-Poetry" />

The magazine also became known for the range of writers published in its pages. The Poetry Foundation identifies notable poems by Gwendolyn Brooks, E. E. Cummings, Joyce Kilmer, Frank O'Hara, Sylvia Plath, and Margaret Walker as having appeared in ''Poetry''.<ref name="PF-about-magazine" /> Its early records, correspondence, and editorial files have been used by scholars as evidence of the development of English-language poetry in the first half of the twentieth century.<ref name="UChicago-records" />

===After Monroe=== Monroe edited the magazine until her death in 1936. The editorship then passed to Morton Dauwen Zabel and George Dillon.<ref name="UChicago-records" /> In 1942, after Dillon stepped down to serve in the armed forces during World War II, the magazine entered a period of group editorship. Editorial work during this period was shared by several figures, including Peter De Vries, Jessica Nelson North, Hayden Carruth, Katinka Loeser, John Frederick Nims, Margedant Peters, and Marion Strobel.<ref name="GroupEditorship">{{cite web |title=An Announcement |url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/articles/154314/an-announcement |website=Poetry Foundation |date=October 1, 2020 |access-date=April 27, 2026}}</ref> Later mid-century editors included Carruth, Karl Shapiro, and Henry Rago.<ref name="UChicago-records" />

Monroe had presented her poetry library, personal papers, and the magazine's editorial files to the University of Chicago in 1931. After her death, the materials helped form the Harriet Monroe Library of Modern Poetry and became part of the university's archival holdings on ''Poetry'' and twentieth-century verse.<ref name="UChicago-records" /> Additional records from the magazine's later history, including editorial correspondence, business files, issue proofs, author payment records, and publication files, are held by Indiana University's Lilly Library.<ref name="Indiana-records" />

==Ruth Lilly bequest and Poetry Foundation era== thumb|The cover of the magazine's first issue, published in October 1912

In 2002, Ruth Lilly, an heir to the Eli Lilly pharmaceutical fortune, gave $100 million to the Modern Poetry Association, then the publisher of ''Poetry''.<ref name="PW-Lilly" /> The gift was one of the largest ever made to an American literary organization.<ref name="PW-Lilly" /> Later coverage described the bequest as being worth approximately $200 million.<ref name="Goodyear2007" />

The magazine learned in 2001 that it would receive the gift; the announcement was delayed while the organization's board was reconfigured.<ref name="Goodyear2007" /> In 2003, the Modern Poetry Association was reorganized as the Poetry Foundation.<ref name="PF-about-foundation" /> The foundation established an endowment intended to support the magazine and expand poetry-related programming.<ref name="PF-about-foundation" />

Joseph Parisi, who had edited ''Poetry'' for two decades, briefly led the new foundation after the gift was announced. Christian Wiman succeeded him as editor in 2003.<ref name="Goodyear2007" /> Under Wiman, the magazine was redesigned, expanded its criticism, and increased contributor payments from two dollars to ten dollars per line.<ref name="Goodyear2007" /> Its circulation also rose from about 11,000 to nearly 30,000 during this period.<ref name="Goodyear2007" />

The Lilly bequest changed the scale of the magazine's institutional setting, moving it from a small literary periodical supported by the Modern Poetry Association into the central publication of a large foundation.<ref name="PF-about-foundation" />

===Poetry Foundation building=== thumb|''Poetry'' magazine's editorial offices and library in Chicago

After the Lilly gift, the foundation built a permanent home for ''Poetry'' in Chicago. The Poetry Foundation building, designed by John Ronan Architects, opened in 2011 at 61 West Superior Street. The building includes the magazine's offices, foundation offices, a public poetry library, an exhibition gallery, a public garden, and a performance space for readings and events.<ref name="CAC-building">{{cite web |title=Poetry Foundation |url=https://www.architecture.org/online-resources/buildings-of-chicago/poetry-foundation |website=Chicago Architecture Center |access-date=May 5, 2026}}</ref><ref name="ChicagoMag-building">{{cite magazine |last1=Rodkin |first1=Dennis |last2=Carter |first2=Paula |title=Poetry Magazine Celebrates Its New Home |url=https://www.chicagomag.com/chicago-magazine/july-2011/poetry-magazine-celebrates-its-new-home/ |magazine=Chicago |date=June 23, 2011 |access-date=May 5, 2026}}</ref>

===Print and digital archive=== ''Poetry'' is published in print and online. In 2020, ''Book Riot'' wrote that the magazine's entire archive was available online at no cost, and that print back issues could be purchased.<ref name="BookRiot-litmag">{{cite web |last=Polson |first=Emily |title=Read Harder 2020: An Edition of a Literary Magazine (Digital or Physical) |url=https://bookriot.com/literary-magazines/ |website=Book Riot |date=January 13, 2020 |access-date=May 5, 2026}}</ref> The foundation describes its own digital archive<ref name="PoetryFoundationArchive">{{cite web |title=Poetry Magazine Archive |url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/archive |website=Poetry Foundation |access-date=5 May 2026}}</ref> as containing more than 1,200 issues.<ref name="PF-about-magazine" />

===Submission and editorial process=== ''Poetry'' accepts submissions through Submittable from September 15 to June 15 each year.<ref name="PF-editorial-policy">{{cite web |title=Editorial Policy |url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/about-us/editorial-policy |website=Poetry Foundation |access-date=May 5, 2026}}</ref> The magazine receives more than 100,000 poems annually and response times can be up to one year;<ref name="PF-submit">{{cite web |title=How to Submit |url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/submit |website=Poetry Foundation |access-date=May 5, 2026}}</ref> in a 2023 interview with ''The Millions'', editor Adrian Matejka said the magazine received about 12,000 submitted poems per month.<ref name="Millions-Matejka2023">{{cite web |last=Dueben |first=Alex |title='Poetry' Editor-in-Chief Adrian Matejka Looks to the Future |url=https://themillions.com/2023/05/poetry-editor-in-chief-adrian-matejka-looks-to-the-future.html |website=The Millions |date=May 24, 2023 |access-date=May 5, 2026}}</ref> ''Poets & Writers'' described ''Poetry'' and ''The New Yorker'' as prestigious poetry markets with "vanishingly small acceptance rates", while ''Book Riot'' cited ''Poetry''{{'}}s high submission volume in describing it as one of the hardest poetry magazines to publish in.<ref name="PW-SubmissionGuide2025">{{cite magazine |last=Sweeney |first=Dennis James |title=Ten Outstanding Literary Magazines for Poetry |url=https://www.pw.org/content/ten_outstanding_literary_magazines_for_poetry |magazine=Poets & Writers |date=November–December 2025 |access-date=May 5, 2026}}</ref><ref name="BookRiot-best-poetry-mags">{{cite web |last=Arnone |first=Chris M. |title=20 of The Best Poetry Magazines You Need to Read |url=https://bookriot.com/best-poetry-magazines/ |website=Book Riot |date=March 27, 2023 |access-date=May 5, 2026}}</ref>

In a 2022 interview with ''Newcity'', Matejka said he wanted the editorial process to involve "an actual conversation" and said poems were read multiple times, including aloud in editorial meetings; Michelle T. Boone said the organization was changing "the rotation of who's reading" and making room for more people to read, interpret, and recommend work for publication.<ref name="Newcity-Boone-Matejka-Sasaki2022">{{cite web |last=Wisniewski |first=Mary |title=Literati of the Moment: A Conversation With Michelle Boone, Adrian Matejka and Fred Sasaki of the Poetry Foundation |url=https://lit.newcity.com/2022/08/01/literati-of-the-moment-a-conversation-with-michelle-boone-adrian-matejka-and-fred-sasaki-of-the-poetry-foundation/ |website=Newcity |date=August 1, 2022 |access-date=May 5, 2026}}</ref> Matejka told ''The Millions'' in 2023 that the magazine had limited poets to one appearance per year and aimed for half of each issue to feature poets new to ''Poetry''.<ref name="Millions-Matejka2023" /> As of 2026, the magazine paid $500 for text or visual poems, $600 for video poems, and $400 per published page of prose.<ref name="PF-submit" />

===Editorial controversies=== ====2006 essay by John Barr==== In 2006, the magazine published an essay by John Barr, then president of the Poetry Foundation, titled "American Poetry in the New Century", which became controversial, generating many complaints and some support.<ref name="Barr2006">{{cite web |last=Barr |first=John |title=American Poetry in the New Century |url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/articles/68634/american-poetry-in-the-new-century |website=Poetry Foundation |date=August 23, 2006 |access-date=May 5, 2026}}</ref><ref name="Goodyear2007" /> After having heard a talk Barr gave on the subject, Christian Wiman asked Barr to submit it to the magazine.<ref name="Goodyear2007" />

"American poetry is ready for something new because our poets have been writing in the same way for a long time now", Barr wrote. He added that there was "fatigue" and "something stagnant" about contemporary poetry, and argued that poetry was nearly absent from public life because poets too often wrote only for other poets rather than for a broader public.<ref name="Barr2006" /> Although M.F.A. programs had expanded greatly, Barr wrote that the result had been more poetry but also more limited variety, and that poetry had become "neither robust, resonant, nor — and I stress this quality — entertaining".<ref name="Barr2006" />

Barr also suggested that poets get experience outside the academy. Comparing poetry with drama in Shakespeare's day, the novel in the nineteenth century, and film in the twentieth century, he argued that an art enters a golden age when it is "addressed to and energized by the general audiences of its time".<ref name="Barr2006" />

Dana Goodyear, writing in ''The New Yorker'', described Barr's essay as counter to the ideas of the magazine's founder, Harriet Monroe.<ref name="Goodyear2007" /> Goodyear wrote that Monroe had wanted to protect poets from the demands of popular taste, while Barr wanted to induce poets to appeal to the public; she also noted that popular interest in poetry had declined since Monroe's time.<ref name="Goodyear2007" /> Wiman later said he agreed with many of Barr's points about contemporary poetry.<ref name="Goodyear2007" />

====2020 criticism and editorial changes==== In June 2020, the Poetry Foundation and ''Poetry'' faced criticism over the organization's response to protests against police violence and racism following the murder of George Floyd.<ref name="SunTimes-2020">{{cite news |last=Italie |first=Hillel |title=Poetry Foundation president and chairman resign amid criticism over response to racism, police violence |url=https://chicago.suntimes.com/entertainment-and-culture/2020/6/10/21286738/poetry-foundation-president-and-chairman-resign-criticism-henry-bienen-willard-bunn-iii |work=Chicago Sun-Times |agency=Associated Press |date=June 10, 2020 |access-date=May 5, 2026}}</ref> An open letter signed by more than 1,000 poets and supporters criticized the foundation's initial statement as vague and lacking "any commitment to concrete action" and said contributors would withhold work from ''Poetry''.<ref name="SunTimes-2020" /> The letter also called for the resignation of Foundation president Henry Bienen and board chair Willard Bunn III; on June 10, the foundation announced that Bienen's resignation had been accepted and that Bunn was stepping down as board chair.<ref name="SunTimes-2020" /><ref name="PF-Leadership2020">{{cite web |title=Announcement of Leadership Changes |url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/153859/announcement-of-leadership-changes |website=Poetry Foundation |date=June 10, 2020 |access-date=May 5, 2026}}</ref>

The foundation and magazine staff later issued an open letter apologizing for "silence in the face of crisis" and pledging changes that included an equity audit of foundation policies and practices.<ref name="PF-Commitment2020">{{cite web |title=Open Letter of Commitment to Our Community |url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/153860/open-letter-of-commitment-to-our-community |website=Poetry Foundation |date=June 12, 2020 |access-date=May 5, 2026}}</ref> Later that month, the editors of ''Poetry'' apologized for publishing Michael Dickman's poem "Scholls Ferry Rd." in the July/August 2020 issue, saying that the poem contained racist language and that publishing it "was a mistake".<ref name="PF-Scholls2020">{{cite web |title=To Our Readers Regarding “Scholls Ferry Rd.” by Michael Dickman |url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/blog/from-poetry-magazine/84382/to-our-readers-regarding-scholls-ferry-rd-by-michael-dickman |website=Poetry Foundation |date=June 26, 2020 |access-date=May 5, 2026}}</ref>

The same day, the foundation announced that editor Don Share would step aside.<ref name="PF-Share2020">{{cite web |title=Announcement of Changes to POETRY Magazine |url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/153883/announcement-of-changes-to-poetry-magazine |website=Poetry Foundation |date=June 26, 2020 |access-date=May 5, 2026}}</ref> In a subsequent editor's note, Share wrote that he accepted "sole responsibility" for publishing the poem and said his departure would be part of a restructuring of the magazine's editorial process.<ref name="Share-EditorsNote2020">{{cite web |last=Share |first=Don |title=Editor’s Note |url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/articles/153943/editor39s-note-5f0f1bc747964 |website=Poetry Foundation |date=July 16, 2020 |access-date=May 5, 2026}}</ref>

====2023–2024 boycott and resolution==== In November 2023, more than 2,000 poets, writers, and editors pledged to boycott the Poetry Foundation and ''Poetry'' after the magazine did not publish a review of Sam Sax's poetry collection ''PIG''.<ref name="LitHub-Boycott2023">{{cite web |last=Sheehan |first=Dan |title=Over 2000 poets and writers are boycotting the Poetry Foundation |url=https://lithub.com/over-2000-poets-and-writers-are-boycotting-the-poetry-foundation/ |website=Literary Hub |date=November 13, 2023 |access-date=May 5, 2026}}</ref> The review was later published in ''The Poetry Project Newsletter'', where its author wrote that it had originally been commissioned by the foundation and that an editor told him on October 8, 2023, that publication would be delayed.<ref name="PoetryProject-Tranen2023">{{cite web |last=Tranen |first=Joshua Gutterman |title=The Hog is a Lonely Hunter: On Pig by Sam Sax |url=https://www.poetryproject.org/publications/newsletter/274-fall-2023/the-hog-is-a-lonely-hunter |website=The Poetry Project |date=Fall 2023 |access-date=May 5, 2026}}</ref>

The boycott’s organizers said it responded to a “recent instance of prejudiced silencing” and the “censoring of anti-Zionist Jewish writers”.<ref name="LitHub-Boycott2023" /> The foundation later said it would be “reductive” to attribute the boycott to a single cause or incident.<ref name="PF-Clarity2024">{{cite web |title=A Commitment to Clarity |url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/1468900/a-commitment-to-clarity |website=Poetry Foundation |date=March 26, 2024 |access-date=May 5, 2026}}</ref>

The boycott ended in March 2024. The foundation said the boycott had been lifted after discussions with organizers, and ''Publishers Weekly'' reported that organizers had lifted the boycott, which it described as having begun over the organization's "silence on the war in Gaza".<ref name="PF-Clarity2024" /><ref name="PW-BoycottLifted2024">{{cite web |title=Poetry Foundation Boycott Lifted by Organizers |url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/newsbrief/index.html?record=4592 |website=Publishers Weekly |date=March 27, 2024 |access-date=May 5, 2026}}</ref>

==Awards and recognition== ''Poetry'' has received several National Magazine Awards from the American Society of Magazine Editors. In 2011, the magazine won General Excellence, Print, in the Literary, Political and Professional Magazines category.<ref name="ASME2011">{{cite web |title=National Geographic Named Magazine of the Year at 2011 National Magazine Awards Dinner |url=https://www.asme.media/national-geographic-named-magazine-of-the-year-at-2011-national-magazine-awards-dinner |website=American Society of Magazine Editors |date=May 9, 2011 |access-date=May 5, 2026}}</ref><ref name="PF-Award2011">{{cite web |title=Poetry Wins National Magazine Award for General Excellence |url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/71698/poetry-wins-national-magazine-award-for-general-excellence |website=Poetry Foundation |date=May 10, 2011 |access-date=May 5, 2026}}</ref> The ''Poetry'' magazine podcast also won a National Magazine Award for Digital Media in the Podcasting category that year.<ref name="PF-Award2011" />

In 2014, ''Poetry'' won General Excellence in the Literature, Science and Politics category.<ref name="ASME2014">{{cite web |title=National Magazine Awards 2014 Winners Announced |url=https://www.asme.media/index.php?catid=20%3Asite-content&id=144%3Anational-magazine-awards-2014-winners-announced&option=com_content&view=article |website=American Society of Magazine Editors |date=May 1, 2014 |access-date=May 5, 2026}}</ref><ref name="PF-Award2014">{{cite web |title=Poetry Magazine Wins Ellie Award for General Excellence in Literature, Science and Politics |url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/71784/poetry-magazine-wins-ellie-award-for-general-excellence-in-literature-science-and-politics |website=Poetry Foundation |date=May 5, 2014 |access-date=May 5, 2026}}</ref> In 2020, John Lee Clark's essay "Tactile Art", published in the magazine's October 2019 issue, won the National Magazine Award for Essays and Criticism.<ref name="ASME2020-Essays">{{cite web |title=Essays and Criticism 2020 |url=https://www.asme.media/essays-and-criticism-2020 |website=American Society of Magazine Editors |access-date=May 5, 2026}}</ref><ref name="PF-Award2020">{{cite web |title=Poetry magazine wins National Magazine Award in the Category of Essays and Criticism |url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/153764/poetry-magazine-wins-national-magazine-award-in-the-category-of-essays-and-criticism |website=Poetry Foundation |date=May 29, 2020 |access-date=May 5, 2026}}</ref>

==Legacy and influence== ''Poetry'' has been treated by scholars and reference works as a central periodical in the development of modern English-language poetry, literary modernism, and the little-magazine movement.<ref name="Britannica-Poetry" /><ref name="Carr-Oxford" /> John Timberman Newcomb wrote that the magazine helped create a space for contemporary American verse where none had previously existed, that its early editorial program contributed to the self-definition of twentieth-century American avant-gardism, and that ''Poetry'' had a "transformative impact" upon American poetry and literary culture generally.<ref name="Newcomb-Oxford">{{cite book |last=Newcomb |first=John Timberman |chapter=Poetry's Opening Door: Harriet Monroe and American Modernism |title=How Did Poetry Survive? The Making of Modern American Verse |publisher=University of Illinois Press |year=2012 |pages=26–53 |doi=10.5406/illinois/9780252036798.003.0003 |url=https://academic.oup.com/illinois-scholarship-online/book/30249/chapter/257227260 |access-date=May 5, 2026}}</ref>

The magazine's early role has also been examined through its format, editorial policy, and place in modernist print culture. Bartholomew Brinkman argues that the design and presentation of ''Poetry: A Magazine of Verse'' helped shape how modern poetry was read, separating poetry from popular verse and presenting the poem as an aesthetic object on the page.<ref name="Brinkman-JML">{{cite journal |last=Brinkman |first=Bartholomew |title=Making Modern "Poetry": Format, Genre and the Invention of Imagism(e) |journal=Journal of Modern Literature |volume=32 |issue=2 |year=2009 |pages=20–40 |doi=10.2979/JML.2009.32.2.20 |jstor=25511802 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25511802 |access-date=May 5, 2026}}</ref> In a later study of Chicago literary culture, Brinkman wrote that ''Poetry'' and ''The Little Review'' were instrumental in promoting the Chicago literary renaissance and Chicago modernism.<ref name="Brinkman-Cambridge">{{cite book |last=Brinkman |first=Bartholomew |chapter=Poetry, the Little Review, and Chicago Modernism |editor-last=Køhlert |editor-first=Frederik Byrn |title=Chicago: A Literary History |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2021 |pages=180–193 |doi=10.1017/9781108763738.014 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/chicago/poetry-the-little-review-and-chicago-modernism/740820C9DC403E1D3E072AED98E54190 |access-date=May 5, 2026}}</ref>

The magazine's archives have also been treated as a major record of twentieth-century poetry. The University of Chicago Library states that the magazine's records document, among other things, the development of English-language verse in the first half of the twentieth century.<ref name="UChicago-records" />

The Beirut-based Arabic literary magazine ''Shi'r'' was named after ''Poetry''.<ref name="Creswell2019">{{cite book |last=Creswell |first=Robyn |title=City of Beginnings: Poetic Modernism in Beirut |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=2019 |location=Princeton, New Jersey |isbn=9780691185149 |page=117 |url=https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691182186/city-of-beginnings |access-date=May 5, 2026}}</ref>

==See also== *List of literary magazines

==Notes and references== Specific references: {{reflist}}

==External links== {{commons}} *{{official website|http://www.poetrymagazine.org/}} *[http://www.poetryfoundation.org Poetry Foundation] *[https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/scrc/findingaids/view.php?eadid=ICU.SPCL.POETRY&q=Monroe,%20Harriet,%201860-1936 ''Poetry: A Magazine of Verse'' (1911–1962)] Records at the [https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/scrc/ University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center] *[https://archives.iu.edu/catalog/InU-Li-VAA3754 ''Poetry'' (1954–2002)] Records at Indiana University *[https://modjourn.org/journal/poetry/ ''Poetry: A Magazine of Verse''] at the Modernist Journals Project: a cover-to-cover, searchable digital edition of the magazine's first ten years, from vol. 1, no. 1 (Oct. 1912) to vol. 21, no. 3 (Dec. 1922). PDFs of these 123 issues may be downloaded for free from the MJP website. *[http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/O/bo13919067.html ''The Open Door: One Hundred Years of 'Poetry' Magazine''] – A poetry anthology celebrating the magazine's centennial anniversary, by Don Share and Christian Wiman *{{cite web|url=https://www.voanews.com/a/poetry-magazines-editor-good-poetry-grabs-you-and-wont-let-go/1894830.html|title=''Poetry'' Magazine's Editor: Good Poetry Grabs You and Won't Let Go|publisher=Voice of America}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Poetry}} Category:1912 establishments in Illinois Category:Magazines established in 1912 Category:Magazines published in Chicago Category:Monthly magazines published in the United States Category:Poetry Foundation Category:Poetry magazines published in the United States