Poetry (revue)

Poetry (founded as Poetry: A Magazine of Verse) has been published in Chicago since 1912. It is one of the leading monthly poetry journals in the English-speaking world. Founded by Harriet Monroe, it is now published by the Poetry Foundation. In 2007 the magazine had a circulation of 30,000, and printed 300 poems per year out of approximately 100,000 submissions. It is sometimes referred to as Poetry—Chicago. Poetry has been financed since 2003 with a $200 million bequest from Ruth Lilly. The magazine was founded in 1912 by Harriet Monroe, an author who was then working as an art critic for the Chicago Tribune. She wrote at that time: "The Open Door will be the policy of this magazine—may 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. Nor will the magazine promise to limit its editorial comments to one set of opinions." In a circular she sent to poets, Monroe said the magazine offered: "First, a chance to be heard in their own place, without the limitations imposed by the popular magazine. In other words, while the ordinary magazines must minister to a large public little interested in poetry, this magazine will appeal to, and it may be hoped, will develop, a public primarily interested in poetry as an art, as the highest, most complete expression of truth and beauty." "In the first decade of its existence, [Poetry] became the principal organ for modern poetry of the English-speaking world." T. S. Eliot's first professionally published poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," was published in Poetry. Prufrock was brought to Monroe's attention by early contributor and foreign correspondent, Ezra Pound. The magazine published the early works of H.D., Robert Frost, Langston Hughes, Edna St. Vincent Millay and Marianne Moore.