CHICAGO — The new editor of Poetry magazine, one of the city’s most important and influential publications, is Adrian Matejka, a great poet and a good guy.
My colleague Darcel Rockett conducted a fine interview with Matejka shortly after he took the job earlier this year. He is the magazine’s first Black editor, hired in the footsteps of Michelle Boone, who in 2021 became the first woman and person of color to be president of the nonprofit Poetry Foundation, which publishes the magazine. He told Rockett, “Michelle is here; our staff is incredibly diverse and we’re all holding hands in common cause to make (the magazine) look more like what our community looks like.”
The magazine is currently in its 110th year, founded long ago in a rough and tumble city by a woman named Harriett Monroe, then an art critic for the Tribune, who famously described the open door policy of her magazine as one with a “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.”
In Matejka’s first October issue as editor, he acknowledges Monroe in his thoughtful and hopeful introduction, and also looks toward the future, writing that he sees the magazine as “a space for conversation as much as it is a testament to the revolutionary work happening right now.”
There are 20-some poems on its 90 pages, as well as prose and commentary and (at least for me) an introduction to the voice of the late Carolyn Marie Rodgers, a Chicago poet and co-founder of Third World Press who spent most of her career under the radar.
One has to appreciate Matejka and his editorial colleagues for being able to find such riches in the astonishing 9,000-some submissions that arrive each month to the magazine, which is housed in the Poetry Foundation building at 61 W. Superior St.
Matejka’s first issue is an encouraging package, and though I did not warm to a few of the writers, I found very much to like and some to adore.
Reading this new issue compelled me to read some of Matejka’s collections. In doing so, I now know why he is often in the discussion at yearly Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award conversations. Especially potent is his “Big Smoke,” a collection focused on the man and myths surrounding prizefighter Jack Johnson.
I also picked up a book, “Who Reads Poetry: 50 Views from Poetry Magazine.” Edited by Don Share, a previous editor of the magazine (2013-2020), and its current creative director Fred Sasaki, it was published in 2017. In its introduction Share writes, “Poetry is in the same room with us, whether we know it or not … In these brief essays people from all walks of life will keep you in superb company as you work out your own views of poetry, and suggest the many ways poetry accompanies us in daily life …”
There are many reasons why, as Share points outs, “people might have some trouble, at first, with poetry.” One of them is the ways in which it continues to be taught in many schools, a memorization chore lacking in passion and context.
But reading this book will go a long way to convincing you of the power and entertainment to be found in poetry. It contains a wonderfully eclectic gathering of more than four dozen voices, with our city fabulously represented by such people as the late critic Roger Ebert and former Tribune columnist Mary Schmich. There is Sally Timms, singer and lyricist of The Mekons; WBEZ reporter and author Natalie Moore; and novelist Aleksandar Hemon. There is also activist, rapper, Grammy and Academy Award winner, teacher Rhymefest (Che Smith), who writes, “Chicago is a poem written by Edgar Allan Poe. It is beautifully tragic, with its political corruption, murder, suspense, segregation, and economic disparity.” And also: “Words can create worlds and I’ve discovered that poetry cannot only be read, but lived out. My life is a poem.”
All of the contributors have valuable and lively short pieces, none longer than a couple of pages. I have known and admired all these Chicago folks and realize that I have known over my many years a lot of other poets, from those who take to the stage on Sunday nights at the Green Mill to participate in Marc Smith’s stunning creation called the poetry slam or the young people who have taken part in that empowering the Kevin Coval concoction called “Louder Than a Bomb.”
One poet I remember fondly is the late David Hernandez. I wrote his obituary in 2013. He was born in Cidra, Puerto Rico, in 1946 and came to Chicago soon afterward, settling with his family in the Wrigleyville neighborhood. He wrote poetry throughout his years at Lake View High School and during his early jobs working in a warehouse and as a youth counselor and community organizer. His poetry celebrated what some refer to as “common people” and outsiders — homeless people, people addicted to drugs — but it was also characterized by warm childhood memories, humor and a deep affection for this complex city. As he once told me, “Poetry belongs to everybody.” He also said, “Being a poet is an excuse to be a human being, to really experience life for what it is.”
I don’t expect all of you reading this to run out to your nearest bookstore and tear into its poetry section. But the new November issue of Poetry is out now and all yours for the taking and the reading.
