A few weeks ago I mentioned my surprise at learning that we receive almost as many poetry submissions as The New Yorker. This week, I found out that we have a higher circulation than both the Georgia Review and the Iowa Review [1], and have as much web traffic as Pedestal Magazine [2]. How are these things even possible? We’re talking about print journals that are 51 and 38 years old respectively, and one of the best online-only literary magazines ever.

I’ve often said that RATTLE is one of the most widely-read poetry journals in the U.S., sometimes even adding that we’re just behind POETRY and APR, but that’s really just a weaselly politician’s talking point. How many all-poetry journals are there, really? While there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of literary journals in the U.S., most include fiction, and/or prose that doesn’t relate to poetry. So while technically true, that statement always seemed to mean more than it really did.

Focusing on poetry, I thought, was a handicap, the narrower audience forcing us under a glass ceiling of readership. What’s more, we don’t really know what we’re doing–we’re no match for the knowledge and experience of the editors of the big, institutionalized literary journals. We’re two desks, and one and a half employees, neither of whom have yet published a book or completed an MFA. Honestly, sometimes when I meet these other editors I feel like a pilot fish, or a bad impersonator with a fake mustache.

Maybe it’s time to get over the inferiority complex?

Sources:

[1] Poets & Writers, May/June 2008.
[2] John Amen, editor, at a reading we did together at Beyond Baroque. (The Pedestal Magazine website is currently down as their migrating servers, but it will be back soon.)