Second Run, an online magazine out of Ames, Iowa, just published its first issue last week, and it’s a peculiar thing. This Second Run does not want the newest, freshest work to show off; it wants old work, poems that have appeared in journals that have either gone out of print, been buried in the back of some grad student’s closet, or have never had any kind of online presence. It wants a kind of zombie poetry.
The submission statement reads, in part:
“Problem: You publish in, even build a relationship with, a good journal. Eventually the journal succumbs to the odds and goes under, and libraries start dumping back issues. The paper is recycled. Your work is not . . .
“Solution: Second Run. We’re here to keep your work alive. Send us your poems, plays, essays and short stories, and if we agree that they’re worth saving, we’ll save them. Your best work will live on in the company of some of today’s best writers.”
So here in the first issue we have, among other delights, a Patricia Smith poem that first appeared in the Paris Review, a Ted Kooser poem that first appeared in the Great River Review, and five sonnets from Ada Limón which first appeared in MiPoesias.
It calls to mind the revivification work Duration Press has done by putting their old chapbooks online in pdf form—making work by Pierre Joris, Rachel Blau Du Plessis, Eleni Sikelianos and others available to anyone with a screen or a printer (when it was otherwise only available to denizens of Troubadour Books)—as well as the great stuff at Ubu editions, edited by Danny Snelson, Brian Kim Stefans and Kenneth Goldsmith. There you can find out-of-print work by Mairéad Byrn, Juliana Spahr, Hannah Weiner, and Ron Silliman, among quite a few others.
There’s some debate about whether or not keeping out-of-print work in pdf circulation keeps publishers from re-printing the stuff in perfect-bound form, but I’ll take Robert Fitterman’s “This Window Makes Me Feel” perfect bound or pdf, thank you. How many of the rest of you are likely to read second runs or pdf’s in lieu of the fetishized object?
I’d add the Bern Porter books made available by Ubu to the list…
Posted By: Don Share on February 19, 2009 at 12:57 pmReport this comment
Don,
Posted By: Kent Johnson on February 19, 2009 at 1:21 pmBern Porter! I have a great story about Bern Porter and the Odd Fellows Hall in Belfast, Maine. I will tell it.
Kent
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I just remembered that I’ve already told it here, some months ago! But it has some relevance to this notion Travis raises about keeping old poetry worth saving alive and kicking, and Porter is a great figure, so I’ll tell it again. This is a letter I sent to Miekal And years ago, which he then posted at Poetics:
Posted By: Kent Johnson on February 19, 2009 at 1:34 pmDear Miekal:
My parents were born and raised in Belfast, Maine and I spent much
time there visiting the gradparents. On one of my visits to
Belfast,
maybe 15 years ago, I attended a reading by Porter, at,
of all places, the Odd Fellows Hall on Main Street. There was a good
and variously-aged crowd there–perhaps 50-60 people–and since this
was winter, most had to be native residents (Belfast has developed
an arts scene fed by lots of immigration in the
past few years, but this was shortly after the chicken processing
plant had closed down, and before the town started creeping towards
the fate of neighbors Camden and Rockport). People listened very
attentively and applauded
politely after each poem. Porter had an “assistant” during this
reading, and during every poem this young man crawled around on the
floor commando-style or on all fours, weaving himself between
Porter’s legs. My memory is that there was some nervous laughter
at the beginning of the reading, but no sense at all of reproach from
the audience.
New England communities have a long traditionof being tolerant–even
protective–of their eccentrics, and this certainly seems to be the
case with
Belfast’s attitude toward Porter. My grandmother told me once that
after his wife died, Porter was in the habit for some time of walking
around town in his wife’s clothes. I remember asking my grandmother if
this didn’t
cause people to laugh at him, and with thick Maine accent she replied
something to the effect that no, Bern has always been very different
but he is a genius and a decent man… I asked her why she thought
he was a genius and whether she had read his work. She said she had
read just a little of it and couldn’t make heads or tails of it, but
that this, of course, was the way of genius. (I am doing my best to be
faithful to her words here!)
I remember reading in _Down East_ magazine (is that where I saw it?)
a wonderful article about the town gala party for Porter’s 90th,
attended by hundreds. There was a parade to kick the festivities off;
Porter led the parade in regal dress and with staff, followed by
town firetrucks and ambulance. A lobster and clam bake followed inthe
park, I think, with games, civic orchestra, and so on.
Ah, that all avant-garde poets would be so dearly loved!
Kent
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What a great Maine story!
Posted By: Annie Finch on February 20, 2009 at 10:00 amTravis, I’m happy to hear about Second Run. Recycling and sustainability make sense for poetry too.
Annie
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It’s a great idea – but where can we safely dispose of those poems we published in journals and would rather no one ever saw again? Is there a Final Run?
Posted By: Lavinia Greenlaw on February 20, 2009 at 1:13 pmAnd thank you, Travis, for SoulIISoul. Great to see Caron Wheeler and to be reminded of the days when people knew how to work the shoulder pad.
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Maybe End Run? Or Best American Poetry??
Posted By: Doodle on February 20, 2009 at 1:25 pmReport this comment
Final Run is a great idea. Though perhaps it should be solicitation-only i.e. “Dear Estate of Joyce Kilmer: Final Run is pleased to announce the removal of your poem ‘Trees’ from circulation . . . ”
Posted By: Travis Nichols on February 20, 2009 at 1:27 pmAnd let’s give some love to the keytar as well as the shoulder pad.
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Travis, thanks for this. I’ve always appreciated, in theory, the “Readings” in Harper’s, which give recently released work an immediate second life in front of a national audience.
Posted By: Jason Guriel on February 20, 2009 at 2:26 pmReport this comment
Wished also to mention.
Posted By: David Krump on February 21, 2009 at 12:38 amIt’s lively that a journal offers second exhibitions for poems, but how consistent is it with the (sub?)mission statement you sample above for Second Run to publish work which originally appeared in Paris Review, Great River Review, and MiPoesias?
These publications are alive and even thriving, through volunteer labor or otherwise.
There’s good reason for us to pay attention to _Second Run_. Beautiful web design. Nice work and applause to editor JIm Cappoc, and his web ninja Nick Van Berkum.
Labor on.
Thanks for drawing it up on the attention board, Travis.
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What about a magazine/website that trawls those musty caches of little magazines for poets that are long dead & forgotten? I do that for my own amusement now & then. Eventually I suppose I’ll post finds on my own unfrequented blogs, praise them effusively, and go about my business with no more p.r. than usual.
Posted By: Glenn Ingersoll on February 23, 2009 at 7:30 pmReport this comment