Picked by the Critics

 

 

 

Karren Alenier (a.k.a. the Steiny Road Poet) was just published in the premiere issue of the online magazine Porlock…along with Paul Muldoon and many others with impressive literary credentials.

 

How a poem is picked for this publication is unusual. A panel of people of various occupations does the choosing. Here’s what the Porlock website says about these guest editors: A philosopher, three science writers, a political candidate, a fiction writer, two critics and a filmmaker selected 39 poems for this first issue of Porlock.

 

While each poem presumably ends with the names of the guest editors who chose the poem, the biographies of these editors are not published. For that matter, the biographies of the contributing poets also are not published. A reader must search on these mostly unfamiliar names to discover who these editors might be. Sven Birkerts and Matt Hanson are listed with “Paul Bowles Laments theDeath of His Wife Jane” by Karren L. Alenier. As best as she can determine, both of these people are critics.

 

There might be more to this story. Stay tuned.