All of this is a work in process.  But I’ll say right now that I’m doing this for pleasure, and I’ll make sure that I enjoy what I’m doing.

The more I write, the more I think my thoughts say more about myself as reader/editor than about artistry; the poems that I've published (and quoted) say more about artistry--a term that seems to me to fuse "art" and "craft" in more of an action sense, fusing the inspiration, imagination, passion, attention, serendipity of the creative process with the critical deliberateness, devices and techniques in the sculpting of the poem. But at the same time, the more I write the more I think it's futile to ask an editor what he's (in this case) "looking for." It's somewhat like asking a poet "where that poem came from." But unfortunately I sometimes enjoy thinking about artistry, so I'll continue. I'll try to keep in mind my main purpose of maybe suggesting something of my editorial biases, e.g. in my choice of examples, and maybe furthermore I'll say something that is helpful in some way to someone.

E-mail comments welcomed: Tom. There's no reason to think that everything I say below is accurate; and of course more can be said. If I receive a comment that I think readers would like to see, I'll post it.

And I have, myself, struggled with these things, sometimes painfully and not always successfully. "But you gotta try," as the poet said.

But these are just a few, fairly simple-minded, thoughts about where I'm coming from, regarding artistry (and the role of art).  Click on topics above, “animation” through “voice”.

What makes a poem important might be subject matter, or other discursive or emotive content--a topic that could not formerly be written about, or has not been written about, a well observed nuance, a new idea or insight into an old matter. I think that such content is important to the art as a whole, because the art of poetry must be engaged with what is happening to humanity at the moment; but it is not, in itself, crucial to the making of an effective poem. It seems to me that because our experience of a poem is imaginative, and aesthetically verbal, the essential feature of an effective poem is verbal artistry that enlivens a reader's imagination.

One way of talking about it is to say that poetic artistry produces, to borrow from Pound, an apparition. We begin to read--we open a door--and something appears, like Stevens's "necessary angel" in the doorway. Something comes to us, that we had not "seen" before, would not have seen had we never read the poem, but see again each time we read the poem (well). [[What is it? I don't know. It is the poem. Can it be something separate from the poem? I guess I'm inclined to think not, just as I'm inclined to think that nothing is separate from "matter." Ugh, as Creeley says, in a poem. But thoughts like these make part of what I am, as an editor--part of my imagination, aesthetics, taste.]] It appears to our imagination. It is an intense imagination (of some part, large or small) of life.

So whatever its topic or its emotive or discursive content, our poem must cause an intense, aesthetic imagination to happen in our willing reader. We accomplish this through our making with words (and doing to words) by means of (most of the time--there are effective exceptions) structure, metaphor, image, rhythm, and/or other devices. Of course there are thousands of fine examples, and everybody has their own favorites, but by way of illustration my examples are a few of my favorites, which I hope will concretely explain what's going on in my editorial mind.

On the previous Barnwood site, I posted some thoughts about various aspects of artistry and craft in the art of poetry.  I’ve transferred most of those thoughts, but the original pages can be found here.