Pub Crawl: Rattle

If you are a looking for a poetry journal that takes seriously its spirit of egalitarianism, then Rattle is for you. So what if you’re not Kay Ryan or Billy Collins—a fair shake is what you will get, and for those of us who feel like anchovies in an enormous ocean full of grey whales, all competing for an ever-shrinking population of krill, that’s something. Many thanks to editor Timothy Green for taking the time to answer some questions for us.

RM: Tell us how Rattle started.

TG: Well, this was before my time—I was in middle school in 1994, but Alan Fox was taking a private course in "method writing" from Los Angeles teacher/writer/actor/editor Jack Grapes. At the end of the workshop, the students wanted to put together an anthology of their poems, and Alan volunteered to do the legwork. And that was the first issue of Rattle, saddle-stitched chapbook-style at Kinko's, or so the story goes. The next few issues were similar, gradually expanding from local contributors to a national journal requesting submissions and publishing regularly. For the first few years it was published by Jack Grapes' Bombshelter Press, a collective that also put out ONTHEBUS and single-author books. But Alan's been editor-in-chief the whole time, and it's been his vision of a poetry magazine—one that “pays off without a high admission price” might be a good way to say it. He wants a magazine that's accessible enough to be enjoyed by those who don't regularly read poetry, without boring those who do. As the magazine grew, it became a real full-time job, and he hired first Stellasue Lee and then myself to run things.

RM: I was intrigued that your goal as a magazine is to promote the practice of poetry, and to foster and encouraged a community of those who write and love poetry. How do you do that through a literary journal?

TG: I don't know if it's capitalism that does this to us, or a comparison to more commercially viable entertainment media, but somehow everyone seems to be locked into the idea that poetry can be a commodity. That there are these great poets out there who are producing idyllic objects that should be consumed by people who aren't poets themselves. "Only poets read poetry!" How often have you heard that, as if it's a travesty? "We're only reading each other...what's the point?" the poets lament. But if you talk to those select few who've found themselves in the pantheon of great poets, they'll tell you that the only reward, even for them, is the process of writing itself. They all talk about the meditative state of attuned absorption in what they're doing, the joy of creation. Being a poet gives you access to these moments of secular spiritualism—it brings a heightened awareness, attuned attention, empathy, concentration, imagination. Engaging in poetry makes your relationship with your own life more vivid. It's an enriching practice, no matter who's practicing -- so why should it be reserved for a literary elite? When we start to value to the product more than the process—an unfortunate tendency in contemporary culture—that's exactly what we're doing.

So the role of a literary magazine, as I see it, isn't necessarily to disseminate great poems. It's not about passing out mental medicine to the unwashed masses—which is the sense I get, reading much of what's out there. We're all poets, after all, reading these—and thank God for that. The role of a literary magazine is to provide a venue where we can share and appreciate each others' successful moments of creation. The main value of poetry is in the toiling away at poetry, but every so often these jewels emerge that we want to share—Rattle is a nice place to put them on display. And somehow that potential to share is necessary, too. I often think of "Zen in the Art of Archery"—"the right art is aimless...don't shoot to hit the target." The Zen is in the processes, and yet we set up targets at a range to provide a space for the process to occur. A literary magazine is a target in that wa—less important, but that it encourages what actually is important. 

How does Rattle make the most of that ideology? We don't solicit work. We don't publish anything based on the reputation of the author. We encourage feedback and participation. We give everything we publish away for free online. We stay personal, and remain honest about our own ignorances and imperfections... We also have a special section in each issue that highlights a certain group of poets—lawyer poets, nurses, mental health workers, etc.—that pay tribute to those finding time to write with a day-job, and remind us all that you don't have to be an academic to be a poet.

RM: Have you seen poetry in the 21st century begin to retreat from the ivory towers and regain a footing among the rest of us? In what ways?

TG: It's hard to see what's happening in poetry because the landscape is so broad, and I still think it's mostly looked at backwards. When you think of the success of slam and performance poetry, with Def Poetry Jam on HBO, YouTube sensations, crowds of thousands—or the Cowboy Poetry Gathering, and other popular festivals of that sort—it at first seems like a democratization, but who knows, if you looked closer maybe you'd see they have their own towers emerging... It's nice to see a poet like Patricia Smith—who I think is one of the absolute finest out there—going from the stage to the page, and her talents being appreciated in every realm. It's nice to see someone like Kay Ryan as Poet Laureate, who was never really in the mainstream. It's nice to see Billy Collins and Mary Oliver at the top of the bestsellers lists, both of whom are actually excellent poets even though they aren't always critically acclaimed. Nice not to see Jewel or Leonard Nemoy next to them... But I really have no idea what's going on, and anyway, I don't think that's the stuff that actually matters.

I could give a whole separate answer about digital media, self-publishing, print-on-demand, blogging and so on. Obviously those new technologies are opening doors and leveling the playing field...but the playing field's always been paper-thin, and those towers built mostly on illusion.

RM: Tells us your favorite chapbooks of the last year.

TG: That's an interesting question. I take my resistance to personal biases very seriously, so I can say with a straight face that the best chapbook I've ever read is my wife Megan's "The Beaded Curtain," which came out about a year ago from Spire Press. Reeves Keyworth's "My Daphne Phase" is also a very good one (and there's a review copy waiting at Rattle.com for anyone interested). What they both have in common is that they seem like they really could be full-length books; there's a promise that's completed. I've always felt like the chapbook was an under-utilized format—it's a great length for some things, but usually we see them just as stepping stones to a "full-length" book, and so treat them that way. Another casualty of marketing, I guess.

RM: How does the editorial staff at Rattle approach a piece of poetry in the slush pile?

TG: Well, as I said above, we don't solicit work, so it's all slush or none of it's slush, depending on your perspective. It's just a matter of reading poem after poem with an open mind, and pulling out anything you still feel like reading again. There's nothing at all complicated about it. Megan (my wife's also our assistant editor) reads and pulls out everything she likes. Then I read and pull out everything I like. Then we take that thin stack to Alan about once a month, and he pulls out everything he likes. By some miracle we always seem to be left with just the right number of poems for an issue. We're careful not to read when we're in a bad mood or too tired. We don't have to worry about being swayed by the name at the top or the bio, because we really just don't care. By necessity, we end up reading every poem we publish a couple dozen times, and if that feels like a chore, we made a mistake. But for the most part the poems choose themselves. Some poems have an element that grabs you, whether it's the voice, or the music, or the concept or the emotion of it. The vast majority don't. There's a sense that it's all just paperwork—you're an administrator for the muse, and the decision was made way back whenever the poem was written. Disagreements are only interpretations of the oracle. Of course, different editors would probably pick different poems, so that can't really be the case—but that is how it feels.

RM: Do you have any advice or encouragement for poets out there who would like to see their work in Rattle?

TG: Advice: Write to please yourself, but be honest with yourself about what pleases you.

Encouragement: For every poem we publish, there were 3,000 rejected. Try counting from 1 to 3,000 to get a sense of the enormity of that number. Then realize that someone enjoyed writing each of those poems as much as you enjoyed writing yours. That's a lot of joy. Also, 1 in 3,000 are long odds, but they're not impossible odds. A hard target is the best kind, so keep shooting.

If you would like to submit your poetry to Rattle, visit rattle.com. 

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