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| The first issue of Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, published in October 1912. |
Poetry Magazine
Archive
Guide to the Poetry (a finding aid to the collection)
Poetry Foundation (publisher of Poetry magazine)
The Treasure: The Special Collections
Research Center
at the University
of Chicago
Accessibility: The
Special Collections Research Center is open Monday
through Friday from 9 to 4:45, and on Saturday mornings while classes are in
session. Changing exhibits highlight material from their many collections. Consult
their website for information on requesting copies of collection material for
research purposes.
Background: The
first issue of Poetry: A Magazine of
Verse was published in October 1912, offering poets a quality home for the
publication of serious and progressive poetry. Founder Harriet Monroe (1860-1936)
launched the magazine with high ambitions. “The Open Door will be the policy of
this magazine,” she wrote at the time. “(M)ay the great poet we are looking for
never find it shut, or half-shut, against his ample genius! To this end the
editors hope to keep free from entangling alliances with any single class or
school. They desire to print the best English verse which is being written
today, regardless of where, by whom, or under what theory of art it is
written.”
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| Completed microfilm reels of the Poetry Magazine Archive. Photo courtesy of the University of Chicago Library. |
In that first year, Monroe
named American poet Ezra Pound as foreign editor, publishing two of his poems
in the magazine’s first issue. With his ear for talent, Pound encouraged
submissions by James Joyce, Robert Frost, D.H. Lawrence, W.B. Yeats, and H.D.
Most notably, he recommended publication of “The Love Song of J. Alfred
Prufrock” by the previously unpublished poet T.S. Eliot. Published in the June
1915 issue, “Prufrock” marked a pivotal moment in the development of modern
poetry.
Throughout its century-long existence, Poetry has remained
at the forefront of innovations in modern poetry, including the Modernist, Imagist,
and Objectivist movements. Among the hundreds of significant poems published by
Poetry, some of the most famous
include “We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks, “Chicago” by Carl Sandburg, “Sunday
Morning” by Wallace Stevens, “anyone lived in a pretty how town” by E.E.
Cummings, and “Fever 103°” by Sylvia Plath. Other acclaimed poets published in
its pages include Langston Hughes, W.H. Auden, Edna St. Vincent Millay,
Marianne Moore, Elizabeth Bishop, William Carlos Williams, and Allen Ginsburg.
But Harriet Monroe’s goal for Poetry was never to promote the work of the famous and established.
Above all, she wanted to encourage new poets and new audiences for them. This desire continues to drive work at the
magazine today. Despite the rigorous review that all submissions must go
through, Poetry maintains its
commitment to new poets, with over a third of their published poetry generally coming
from previously unpublished writers.
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| Completed microfilm reels of the Poetry Magazine Archive. Photo courtesy of the University of Chicago. |
Notes from the
Editor: Poetry turned 100 in 1912, celebrating the occasion with the
publication of The Open Door: 100 Poems, 100 Years of Poetry Magazine. In his review of The Open Door, the National Post’s poetry columnist Michael Lista wrote, “In many ways
this is a radically democratic anthology — to get in you don’t need to be
famous, you just need to be good.” You couldn’t ask for a better testament to
Harriet Monroe’s original ideals for the magazine.
Other Recommended
Sites: While visiting the University of Chicago
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| The January 2012 issue of Poetry, celebrating 100 years of publication. |
Tour America's History Itinerary
Friday’s destination: First Baptist Congregational Church
© 2012 Lee Price
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