A Third Eye

A THIRD EYE / Robert S. Fogarty IdeaUy editors should have a third eye (its placement is not important) in order to see beyond both the one that rejects manuscripts and the other one that accepts them. Such an eye should scan the horizon, looking past the daily problems of survival toward some future issue or project that needs to be done. Forced by both circumstance and habit to keep their eyes on what comes in the mail or what seems like the contemporary situation on the Uterary scene, editors of most literary magazines rarely scan the horizon. Their preoccupation with getting the next issue out, with getting through the manuscript pile so as to do justice to the writers who have labored to produce a story or make an idea come across as an idea, often obscures an essential function that too few editors indulge in—namely, thinking about what should be, rather than what is, about the territory beyond the horizon. One of the ways I think about what should be is to read what is, to look at other literary magazines. I do it with all three eyes at work. One calculating the acceptance process to see what found favor in some other smaU corner of the literary world, one gauging our own standards against the criteria of other editors, and the third eye looking at the varied assortment of quarterlies that come in every day to see what we might do independent of current trends, of the New York Times Book Review section, and of other journals. Rarely does the work of another quarterly dictate what we wül or won't publish, yet I see them as a vital presence and they remind us of our own situation (by reflection) and of contemporary trends and issues. My own reading of other magazines is serendipitous. When they arrive in the office (we exchange with about 120 periodicals), a few are always set aside for close scrutiny—Antaeus, the Pons Review, the Georgia Review, Ploughshares, the Kenyon Review, and the Yale Review. For the most part I give the great majority a passing blow, noting changes in format and glancing at the table of contents. Since I consider the Antioch Review particularly well designed and most literary journals indifferently put together, I am especially conscious of their look and feel. Otherwise fine journals (like Kenyon) seem badly designed, others (the Southwest Review) oblivious to design. The Spring 1983 issue of the Southwest Review features on its cover a photograph of a juvenile gull perched on a log ("Orphan At Dusk"). The relationship between that photograph, the idea behind it, and that issue of the magazine escaped me. Both Field and Ploughshares often invite a reader inside by their colorful and inventive covers. The latest Ploughshares features a lovely 240 · The Missouri Review monotype by Michael Mazur with flowers opening before us in soft colors. My first question is always: how does it look? Are they using the same paper, have they added pages (rarely), have they made some shift in tone or temper (more fiction, less poetry)? I think of myself at times as a potential reader browsing in the City Lights Bookshop, in the Resource Center at Broome Community College, or in the periodicals room at the Widener Library. Such a reader is not a hardened devotee of poetry, or of the short story, or even a literary critic seeking to keep up, but more likely a political scientist looking for some humane air, a sophomore seeking refuge from Biology 104, or a retired individual with some leisure time and an inquiring temperament. Few readers of literary magazines are quarterly addicts who can't wait for the next issue to reach their hands. Our readers are a mixed lot: some writers (both neophyte and professional), some Antioch alumni (not enough), some curious people who like to be surprised, some coffee-table subscribers. I know that the students at the Writers Workshop in Iowa City read us and that fee-paying participants at Breadloaf take us in, but beyond that our readers are a moveable feast. Literary magazines get few fan letters, and recognition comes when we get...