I know that I’ve been slacking on my Cantos, but in my defense (and isn’t there always an excuse?), I just started a new job doing communications for a labor union, I am writing a review for my good friends at Literatured, and have been trying to remedy some backwardness on writing a review of a book by a Washington, DC area poet. Also, please notice that I have not abandoned the Oxford Comma, though Oxford itself may have. Suck it.

But it is lunchtime and I do have a few spare minutes, so let me promote a truly awesome poetry magazine, Poetry East. I’m working off of a small sample size (one, to be precise – the Spring 2011 issue), but was instantly blown away.

The magazine is associated with DePaul University in Illinois and one can assume is part of the rich cultural and literary heritage of Chicago.

I was in a Barnes and Noble at the Christiana Mall in Delaware, with a gift card burning a hole in my pocket. I picked up a copy of Tony Judt’s devastating jeremiad, Ill Fares the Land (read it, weep, and then commit yourself to changing this country), which I already knew I was going to do. But I always make a point of browsing through the literary magazines.

And that’s when I saw Poetry East. No commentary. No reviews. Just page after page of poems. Translations. New poems. Poems by well known names like A.R. Ammons. Poems by poets I had never heard of before. But poem after poem.

Nothing hackneyed (not even the one by Billy Collins!). Many touched by the influence of twentieth century European avant-gardists (there was even a translation of a Bertolt Brecht poem). And in case you haven’t noticed, that is my favorite influence (shout out to brother surrealists Eluard, Char, and Desnos! rest in peace).

Now that I’m working regularly, I may even indulge in a subscription to this one.