CONTACT: Caitlin Graf, The Nation, press [at] thenation.com, 212-209-5400
New York, NY—August 7, 2017—The Nation, America’s leading source of progressive politics and culture, today announced the appointment of Steph Burt and Carmen Giménez Smith as poetry editors. In their new roles, Burt (@accommodatingly) and Smith (@lizitasmith) will solicit and commission a wide range of American and international poetry and build out a more robust poetry vertical online. They start in the fall and will begin accepting submissions September 15, 2017. (See guidelines.)
“We’re delighted to have Steph and Carmen join our masthead as poetry editors,” says literary editor David Marcus. “Both are accomplished critics and editors as well as poets with wide-ranging tastes, and they bring to the magazine a bold and exciting vision that will help us continue to be an important venue for poetry in America.”
“I’m amazed and delighted to have, together with Carmen, this opportunity,” adds Steph Burt. “In its mix of literary tradition, much-needed advocacy, and committed audience, there is really nothing much like The Nation and we hope to bring readers the poets they like, the poets we like, the poets they didn’t know they loved, and the best poets we ourselves have yet to discover.”
“There’s a lot going on in the poetry world right now, and we’re happy to be able to shine, on some of it, the light that this journal and its readers can give,” says Carmen Giménez Smith. “Poetry has always been vital to progressive movements, and we hope to capture the most striking examples of that intersection.”
Steph Burt (who also goes by Stephen and Stephanie) is a professor of English at Harvard University and the author of several books of poetry and literary criticism, including The Poem Is You (Harvard University Press, 2016) and Advice from the Lights, to be published by Graywolf in October 2017. She first contributed to The Nation in 2002 and, more recently, wrote about the life and times of Polish poet Czesław Miłosz for the 2017 Spring Books issue. Her poems, reviews, essays, and articles have appeared in many journals, including the The New York Times Book Review, the London Review of Books, Rain Taxi, and the Times Literary Supplement. When she is not writing about, or writing, poetry, she has been known to cover comic books, pop music, science fiction, and women’s basketball. She lives in Belmont, Massachusetts, with her spouse and two children.
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Carmen Giménez Smith is a professor of English at Virginia Tech, a CantoMundo fellow, and the author of a memoir and four poetry collections, including Milk and Filth, a finalist for the 2013 National Book Critics Circle award in poetry. She co-edited Angels of the Americlypse: New Latin@ Writing, an anthology of contemporary Latinx writing (Counterpath Press, 2014), and serves as publisher of Noemi Press, which has published over 40 full-length collections of poetry and fiction. Noemi’s catalog is widely recognized as one of the most diverse and innovative presses in contemporary independent publishing and features work by emerging and established writers. Her next collection of poems, Cruel Futures, will be a volume in the City Lights Spotlight Series in 2018. Be Recorder will be published by Graywolf Press in 2019. She lives in Blacksburg, Virginia, with her husband, the writer Evan Lavender-Smith, and their two children.
The Nation has long been part of the lifeblood of American literature. Some of the most esteemed poets and writers have appeared in our pages, including: Marilynne Robinson, Hart Crane, Elizabeth Bishop, Wallace Stevens, Marianne Moore, John Ashbery, Langston Hughes, Adrienne Rich, Sylvia Plath, Emily Dickinson, Alice Walker, W.E.B. Du Bois, Mary McCarthy, Willa Cather, Robert Frost, WH Auden, Amiri Baraka, Allen Ginsberg, Anne Sexton, and William Carlos Williams.
With their distinct and diverse accomplishments, and with many years of experience as editors and poets, Burt and Smith promise to locate and nurture early career talents as well as established writers.
For booking requests or further information, please see contact information above.
About The Nation
Founded by abolitionists in 1865, The Nation has chronicled the breadth and depth of American political and cultural life from the debut of the telegraph to the rise of Twitter, serving as a critical, independent voice in American journalism and a platform for investigative reporting and spirited debate on issues of import to the progressive community.
About The Nation’s Books & Arts Section
Anxious discussions on the future of the book review seem to be a staple these days—yet The Nation continues to dedicate one third of its print edition each week to Books & Arts. Twice a year, we devote an entire issue to such coverage; we’ve done so for over 35 years. Over the course of the past decade-plus, we’ve also built a robust culture vertical on TheNation.com, featuring intelligent and sharp takes on philosophy and literature as well as poetry, music, architecture, art, and film.
