Popular appreciation of poetry ranges from canonical literature of the past to the widely-accepted modern-day verse of Billy Collins or Mary Oliver. Contemporary poetry, however, entails a much broader range of approaches that frequently fall between the cracks of popular acceptance and familiarity. While traditional canons and current well-known poets receive the bulk of the reading public's attention, it is the innovative application of language and thought in a much broader spectrum of poetics that gives today's poetry its lively sense of excitement and intelligence.
Jacket Magazine, an online journal founded in 1997 by Australian poet John Tranter, provides a showcase for a wide range of contemporary poets, with an additional focus on the poetry movements and cultural milieus from which they have descended.
More than a display for creative writing, Jacket also emphasizes the schools of thought that make verse relevant to today's world. Extending to an abundance of in-depth articles, essays, interviews, and featured topics, Jacket involves a many-voiced intelligence that is collectively well-versed in the theoretical applications of language and thought from which innovative poetry derives much of its dynamic inspiration.
A Plurality of Intelligent Voices
The current issue (#39) includes comprehensive features on poets Bob Perelman, Ron Silliman, Nathanial Tarn, and Douglas Barbour. Perelman's feature, for instance, presents poetry, interviews, conversations, and critical essays by related writers that include Charles Bernstein, Rae Armantrout, and Lyn Hejinian. Past issues are equally extensive, featuring poets such as H.D., Mina Loy, Stéphane Mallarmé, and Carl Rakosi, as well as sections devoted to literature from cultural regions of the world like New Zealand and Baja California.
The approach taken to any particular subject is rarely typical. Issue 33, for example, featured a collective book review, assembled from a series of short texts responding to individual poems in Brenda Hillman's 2005 collection, Pieces of Air in the Epic. Edited by Barbara Claire Freeman, the review's contributors include C.D. Wright, Marjorie Perloff, and Robert Hass. As stated by Freeman in her introduction:
“Hillman’s book takes as its lyric/epic subject the diversities of voice, addresses pluralities that are at once political and personal, braids sociality and selves. The goal of this collection, then, is to present a mode of critical response that is as various as the text it encounters ..."
In many ways, Freeman’s summary of this specific project epitomizes Jacket's project as a whole: to be a journal composed from a plurality of voices and methodologies that consolidate for the purpose of examining poetry as it exists today with intelligence, vigor, and a wide-ranging critical approach rarely matched by popular journals, print or otherwise. With ample reflection on poetic currents of the past century, Jacket joins these diverse voices together to provide a solid elaboration on what makes poetry tick in our current age.
Big Changes Ahead
From the beginning, Jacket Magazine has been John Tranter's labor of love - with assistance from Associate Editor Pam Brown and the enthusiastic (unpaid) writers who contribute the bulk of its lively content. After nearly 40 issues, however, Tranter is stepping aside. With the first issue in 2011, Jacket’s internet platform (and the entirety of its archives) will be relocating to the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, emerging as Jacket2, a forward-looking literary project in affiliation with Pennsound and the Kelly Writers House.
From a vigorous past, that has featured the work of writers like John Ashbery, Alice Notley, Diane di Prima, James Tate, John Kinsella, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Dale Smith, and many others, Jacket has established a solid foundation that provides an invaluable resource for any who wish to delve deeper into the many streams of contemporary poetics as they develop. Free of charge, it's easily accessible to any interested reader, with a world-wide distribution that is only possible in the age of the Internet. With all this (and more) going for it, why not take a look? You might be amazed.
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