mags, well, lit.

• A Public Space
• Able Muse
• Antioch Review
• Atlantic Monthly 
• BOMB
• Commentary 
• The Common
• Commonweal
• Conjunctions
• Consequence
• Copper Nickel 
• Daily Lit
• Fifth Wednesday Journal
• Five Points
• Glimmer Train
• Granta
• Guernica
• Gulf Coast
• Harper's Magazine
• The Kenyon Review
• The Literarian
• Lunch Ticket
• Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern
• Meridian
• New Letters
• The New Yorker
• One Story
• Paris Review
• Ploughshares
• Poetry
• Shenandoah
• Tin House
• Zoetrope All-Story
• ZYZZYVA

This barely scratches the surface. John Wood has a reasonable ranking system for literary journals. 

Litter erie

When we looked at magazines and journals in April 2015 we started off telling you about the German literary and philosophy magazine that made its first appearance in 1663. Despite this, and my own interest and involvement in things literary, we quickly moved on to talk about other glossies.

The truth is I've never subscribed to a literary magazine and this is what my business advisor a year later and the editor he sent me to both recommended. If you want to get published in the literary mags, taking out a subscription is a good start.

One of the birthday presents I asked for this year was thus one of the Aus standards and, since that gift of a year's sub to Outland*, copies of Meanjin and Southerly have also appeared for me to glance through.
I'm still trying to digest the poetry I have read and, as predicted, it's not to my taste really and speaks more to those obstacles I'm up against. That said, it helps to know the scene.
*this should read Overland

Australian literary magazines

• The Antipodean
• Arna
• Australian Book Review
• The Australian Horror and Fantasy Magazine
• Australian Literary Review
• Australian Literary Studies
• The Australian Poetry Journal
• Bloodsongs
• The Book Fellow
• Books+Publishing
• Cordite Poetry Review 
• The Critic
• The Gadfly
• Gangway
• Good Reading
• Griffith Review
• Harvest Magazine
• HEAT
• Hermes
• HorrorScope
• Island
• Jacket 
• Kill Your Darlings
• The Lifted Brow
• The Lone Hand
• Mascara
• Meanjin
• Meuse Press
• The Monthly
• Nocturnal Submissions
• Overland
• Peril
• Pertinent
• Quadrant
• Red Leaves
• Review of Reviews
• Right Now
• School Magazine
• Scripsi
• Seizure
• Shadowed Realms
• Shit Creek Review
• Southerly
• Sydney Review of Books
• Victorian Review
• Voiceworks
• Westerly
• Wet Ink

Verse versus voices, vices, vistas visited

I hadn't thought to include the relationship between songs and poetry because song lyrics are often verse with music put to it/verses with music put to them. But the opinion as to who among the songwriters and singers is legitimately a poet, varies.

Lauren Martin's piece in Elite Daily is right to include Jim Morrison and Bob Dylan, wiggle wiggling aside. The case isn't as certain with the samples used to demonstrate the chops of Neil Young or Kanye West and, while I agree with the choice of Johnny Cash, the lyrics quoted are by Trent Reznor. Kurt Cobain? The words suit the songs and the whole grunge ethos but I wouldn't call him a poet necessarily. At least not without having to let countless other songwriters into the fold first.

I don't even know whether to credit Elvis Costello as a poet or just a very clever lyricist. I do know that no list should be without Leonard Cohen who of course started life as a poet, acclaimed in his native Canada. I'd also insist on Tom Waits being there. Mark E Smith too strange to categorise beyond John Peel's "The Fall - always different, always the same"

We could add in her Bob Marley so reggae has its spokesman and that way we can sneak in Jello Biafra for punk despite my love for the other DKs and the sound they produced.

Let's round out with Paul Simon for folk, knowing full well that the task is too massive; just as we said at the beginning.

Pitted against The Poet!

Having got to the age of 56 and being able to rhyme at will hasn't enriched me as much as working in an office has, I am in the bah humbug quadrant of creatives. Nonetheless it is fun to torture myself by watching DVDs of Leonard Cohen, a celebrated poet in his country when I was two. So it isn't inevitable that poets will not be lauded in their time either.

I also know that Touched By The Son would not fail to share a link on the effect poetry has had on history.

How could a poet hoping to be discovered at a reading, a book signing, a slam, a spoken word event, Amazon share in this bounty? If we've been brainwashed to believe there's no money in verse or lira in lyrics, how are we going to capitalise on this newfound power?

First, one has to write a poem and I was taken by the meme containing the H.L. Mencken quote

As democracy is perfected, the office of President represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

All his quotes are this mordant and cutting but just WOW

II

It has come to fruition, the Mencken quote

We might have been more forgiving 

that he dressed up as a cowboy for a living

and then there was a further push 

against the son who is also George Bush 

Now food on your family sounds like quaint repartee

tipped out of their teepees and the Tea Party tee hee

You're fired from a canon of presidential decorum

suitable for internal as for each foreign forum 

Rich kid who isn't righteous as such
just wants to say how he hates you so much

RU a Reel poet?

We may have closed the books but we have done poetry a great disservice - I've done poetry a great disservice - not to acknowledge that verse has been recorded on reel to reel, 8-track cartridges, cassettes and vinyl. It may not mean much to remark on recordings on the Internet but committing poetry to these older forms meant that it had at least a niche market.

I have fond memories of eight-tracks but only because we had a player in the white truck when we went on holidays so they're inextricably tied up with that, but they weren't the best technology.
As the video makes clear, they were replaced by the cassette and then the compact disc.