n. 1. The acts or processes of editing or revising writings; preparations for publication. 2. Edited works; new editions or revisions. 3. A journal of poetry and poetics that is published every nine months and that welcomes: poems; poetry book reviews; translations; manifestos; essays concerning poetry, poetics, poetry movements, or a specific poet or a group of poets; and anything dealing with poetry.

Sometimes when you don’t know the answer, it pays to ask smart people questions. Other times you might find your own way, if not to answers then to discovery, by reading poems. After guest-editing this issue, that’s how it seems to me.

In the Poetics section, you’ll find a wide variety of smart people giving articulate responses to our questions about the lyric poem in America. In the Poetry section, you may discover, like I did, that the lyric poem often has something to do with birds. But never the same bird, or birdsong, or vision of birds, or feathers, and never the same arrangements of the sky.

One other thing, and maybe not a completely stupid metaphor: It turns out that building an issue of a journal is a bit like (I’m imagining, of course) building a nest. You don’t select every stick, every piece of string and swatch of moss, just those right ones from among the many scattered. Then you arrange them into something both functional and aesthetic. And then the rest, dear reader – the launch out and flying part – is up to you

Rob Carney
Guest Editor

•11-7-09
Congratulations to the following poems and poets that were nominated for the Pushcart Cart Prize:

— Paisley Rekdal, “Body of Stuffed Female Fox, Natural History Museum”, Issue 12.
— Maria Melendez, “To Survive Inside the Wheel of Days”, Issue 12. 
— Christopher Kennedy, "Rara Avis", Issue 12.
— Sean Patrick Hill, “Sometimes I See My Country”, Issue 11.
— Jeannine Hall Gailey, “When Asked Why I Write Poem About Japanese Mythology”, Issue 11. 
— Bill Carpenter, “Luke”, Issue 12.

•7-31-09
Editor Tom Holmes' book Henri, Sophie, & The Hieratic Head of Ezra Pound: Poems Blasted from the Vortex is released from BlazeVOX [books]

•4-12-09
Editor Tom Holmes' poem "'A Corpse of Vorices'" appaears on Verse Daily.

•3-12-09
Editor Tom Holmes' Henri, Sophie, & The Hieratic Head of Ezra Pound: Poems Blasted from the Vortex accepted for publication from BlazeVOX Books. Due out in Fall 2009 or Spring 2010.

•2-1-09
A Question of Aesthetics for Issue 12 (Fall 2009)

•12-19-08
Happy 95th birthday to Vorticism.

Vorticism was a defining moment in Modernism. It heavily influenced art, sculpting, writing, and even photography. The main ring leaders were Wyndham Lewis, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, and Ezra Pound.

It is on December 19, 1913, when Ezra Pound first uses the word "Vortex" to describe the artistic energies in London. He used it in a letter to W. C. Williams: "You may get something slogging away by yourself that you would miss in The Vortext" that is going on in London. Six-and-a-half months later the "great MAGENTA cover'd opusculus" BLAST would appear.

Ezra Pound first conceived of Vorticism in the rotary plow when he was child leaving Hailey, Idaho, in the Blizzard of '87. His first use of the word "Vortex" was in the poem "Plotinus" in 1908. But to describe the powerful artisitc movement, it was 95 years ago today — December 19, 1913.

•8-16-08
Editor Tom Holmes' poem "For Her Waking" appaears on Verse Daily.

• Editor Tom Holmes' Pre-Dew Poems has been released from FootHills Publishing.

•6-24-07
Editor Tom Holmes' Negative Time has been released from Pudding House.

•1-8-07
Mike Dockins' poem "Dead Critics Society" has been chosen by Heather McHugh for inclusion in The Best American Poetry 2007. "Dead Critics Society" first appeared in the Atlanta Review. It also appeared on Verse Daily on April 10, 2006.

•11-14-06
New email address: redactionspoetry @ yahoo.com

•9-1-06
Mike Dockins book Slouching in the Path of a Comet has been accepted for publication. Due out in early 2007 from Sage Hill Press. Preorder at sagehillpress@yahoo.com.

•9-1-06
Poetry Assignments: The Book by Tom Holmes. Due out in early 2007 from Sage Hill Press. Tentatively priced at $20. Reserve a copy now, and receive a 40% discount. Contact Sage Hill Press at: sagehillpress@yahoo.com. Offer expires during the AWP conference.

•4-19-06
Redactions is currently seeking submissions for Gemaldegedicht — a poem inspired by or based on a painting. Submissions for this will end in October 2006.

•1-7-06
We are no longer accepting mythic poem submissions for the mythic issue. But we are still and always reading and accepting submissions of poems, essays, books, interviews, etc.