Iodine Poetry Journal – Spring/Summer 2008

This was my first encounter with Iodine, and it was nice to see a magazine with so much space devoted to poetry. Over seventy poems are included in the 2008 Spring/Summer issue of this Charlotte-based journal! A few other things stood out to me, too: a Recommended Reading section in the back features a handful of fairly familiar journals (I hope the next issues feature an even larger selection, perhaps with some lesser known or brand new journals we wouldn’t see listed elsewhere).

This was my first encounter with Iodine, and it was nice to see a magazine with so much space devoted to poetry. Over seventy poems are included in the 2008 Spring/Summer issue of this Charlotte-based journal! A few other things stood out to me, too: a Recommended Reading section in the back features a handful of fairly familiar journals (I hope the next issues feature an even larger selection, perhaps with some lesser known or brand new journals we wouldn’t see listed elsewhere).

I also noticed, somewhat disappointingly, that Iodine lacks Contributors’ Notes – it isn’t that I disapprove of the editors’ choice to keep the contributor information to a minimum (just the city and state of the author) as I understand that the editor may want the work to speak for itself. I was disappointed because I often look in the Contributor Notes to see where I might find more work of a particular poet whose piece I enjoyed. For example, I would have certainly liked to find out where I could read more of David Chorlton’s work – his poem “Forest Texture” shows great dexterity. Linda M. Fischer’s chilling poems, “Morning” and “Hands” featured such emotional honesty and vigor, I hope to see more of her work in the future, too.

In his introduction, editor and publisher Jonathan K. Rice thanks the many who have helped him put together this “little magazine” since the year 2000. Putting together a journal is a lot of hard work and it seems that Rice has undertaken most of it himself. Instead of lightening his load and featuring fewer poets, he chose to simply work harder. Certainly, he should be proud of his efforts.
[www.iodinepoetryjournal.com]