Aerial is an influential poetry magazine edited by Rod Smith

Rod Smith (poet)

Rod Smith, who was born in Gallipolis, Ohio in 1962, is an American poet, editor and publisher. He grew up in Northern Virginia and moved to Washington, DC in 1987. Smith has authored several collections of poetry, including In Memory of My Theories, Protective Immediacy, and Music or Honesty. He...

 and published by Aerial/Edge based in Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

. Along with the magazine, "Aerial/Edge" publishes Edge Books. The first issue of Aerial appeared in 1984

1984 in poetry

Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:*December 19 - Philip Larkin turns down the British Poet Laureateship, and Ted Hughes becomes Poet Laureate....

. Edge Books began with its first publication in 1989

1989 in poetry

Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* Dead Poets Society, a film incorporating excerpts from many traditional poets, ending with the title and opening line of Walt Whitman's lament on the death of Abraham Lincoln, "O Captain! My...

.

Beginning with Issue 6/7 (John Cage), Aerial has published a series of issues devoted to the work of individual poets within the avant-garde

Avant-garde

Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....

 tradition, such as Bruce Andrews

Bruce Andrews

Bruce Andrews is a U.S. poet who is one of the key figures associated with the Language poets .-Life and work:...

, Barrett Watten

Barrett Watten

Barrett Watten is an American poet, editor, and educator often associated with the Language poets.Since 1994, Watten has taught modernism and cultural studies at Wayne State University in Detroit...

, and Lyn Hejinian

Lyn Hejinian

Lyn Hejinian is an American poet, essayist, translator and publisher. She is often associated with the Language poets and is well known for her landmark work My Life , as well as her book of essays, The Language of Inquiry .-Life:Hejinian was born in the San...

.

"Aerial is focused primarily on the avant garde and the experimental, broadly defined", according to the magazine's Web site. This focus could be defined as a poetry and poetics that grew out of a counter-poetic tradition that specifically took root in 20th-century North America. Today, some of the more recognizable of these avante garde and experimental groups would now include Black Mountain poets

Black Mountain poets

The Black Mountain poets, sometimes called projectivist poets, were a group of mid 20th century American avant-garde or postmodern poets centered on Black Mountain College.-Background:...

, the New York School

New York School

The New York School was an informal group of American poets, painters, dancers, and musicians active in the 1950s, 1960s in New York City...

, Language poets

Language poets

The Language poets are an avant garde group or tendency in United States poetry that emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s...

, and the San Francisco Renaissance

San Francisco Renaissance

The term San Francisco Renaissance is used as a global designation for a range of poetic activity centered on San Francisco and which brought it to prominence as a hub of the American poetic avant-garde. However, others The term San Francisco Renaissance is used as a global designation for a range...

. Broadly defined, the various groups and "schools" found antecedents in the diverse theories and practice of John Cage

John Cage

John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...

 and Gertrude Stein

Gertrude Stein

Gertrude Stein was an American writer, poet and art collector who spent most of her life in France.-Early life:...

, George Oppen

George Oppen

George Oppen was an American poet, best known as one of the members of the Objectivist group of poets. He abandoned poetry in the 1930s for political activism, and later moved to Mexico to avoid the attentions of the House Un-American Activities Committee...

 and William Carlos Williams

William Carlos Williams

William Carlos Williams was an American poet closely associated with modernism and Imagism. He was also a pediatrician and general practitioner of medicine, having graduated from the University of Pennsylvania...

, Charles Olson

Charles Olson

Charles Olson , was a second generation American modernist poet who was a link between earlier figures such as Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams and the New American poets, which includes the New York School, the Black Mountain School, the Beat poets, and the San Francisco Renaissance...

 and Robert Duncan

Robert Duncan

-Arts:*Robert Duncan , American music critic*Robert Duncan , British TV actor*Robert Duncan , U.S. composer*Robert Duncan , U.S. poet-Politics:...

, or Madeline Gins

Madeline Gins

Madeline Gins is an American artist, architect, and poet.Madeline Gins met her partner, the artist Arakawa, in 1963. Together, they founded the Architectural Body Research Foundation. They have designed and built residences and parks...

 and Shusaku Arakawa

Shusaku Arakawa

was a Japanese artist and architect. He had a personal and artistic partnership with writer and artist Madeline Gins that spanned more than four decades.-Life:...

 to name a few.

So far, contributors to Aerial over its run of publication have included Lyn Hejinian

Lyn Hejinian

Lyn Hejinian is an American poet, essayist, translator and publisher. She is often associated with the Language poets and is well known for her landmark work My Life , as well as her book of essays, The Language of Inquiry .-Life:Hejinian was born in the San...

, Carla Harryman

Carla Harryman

Carla Harryman is an American poet, essayist, and playwright often associated with the Language poets. She teaches Creative Writing at Eastern Michigan University and serves on the MFA faculty of the Milton Avery School of the Arts at Bard College...

, Elaine Equi

Elaine Equi

Elaine Equi is an American poet.Equi was born in Oak Park, Illinois and grew up in the Chicago area. Since 1988 she has lived in New York with her husband, poet Jerome Sala. She currently teaches creative writing in the Master of Fine Arts programs at City College of New York and The New School...

. Charles Bernstein

Charles Bernstein

Charles Bernstein is an American poet, theorist, editor, and literary scholar. Bernstein holds the Donald T. Regan Chair in the Department of English at the University of Pennsylvania. He is one of the most prominent members of the Language poets . In 2006 he was elected a Fellow of the American...

 and Tina Darragh

Tina Darragh

Tina Darragh is an American poet who was one of the original members of the Language group of poets.Darragh was born in Pittsburgh and grew up in the south suburb of McDonald, Pennsylvania. She began writing in 1968 and studied poetry in Washington, DC at Trinity University from 1970 to 1972...

  to give one sampling. Peter Seaton

Peter Seaton

Peter Seaton was a U.S. poet associated with the first wave of Language poetry in the 1970s. During the opening and middle years of Language poetry many of his long prose poems were published, widely read and influential...

, Jerry Estrin

Jerry Estrin

Jerry Estrin was a U.S. poet and magazine editor born in Los Angeles, California. Estrin was founder and editor of the magazines "Vanishing Cab" and "Art and Con"....

, Leslie Scalapino

Leslie Scalapino

Leslie Scalapino was a United States poet, experimental prose writer, playwright, essayist, and editor, sometimes grouped in with the Language poets, though she felt closely tied to the Beat poets. A longtime resident of California's Bay Area, she earned an M.A. in English from the University of...

, Rae Armantrout

Rae Armantrout

Rae Armantrout is an American poet generally associated with the Language Poets. Armantrout was born in Vallejo, California but grew up in San Diego. She has published ten books of poetry and has also been featured in a number of major anthologies...

 and Ron Silliman

Ron Silliman

Ron Silliman is an American poet. He has written and edited over 30 books, and has had his poetry and criticism translated into 12 languages. He is often associated with language poetry. Between 1979 and 2004, Silliman wrote a single poem, The Alphabet...

 are another sampling of the eclectic

Eclecticism in art

Eclecticism is a kind of mixed style in the fine arts: "the borrowing of a variety of styles from different sources and combining them" . Significantly, Eclecticism hardly ever constituted a specific style in art: it is characterized by the fact that it was not a particular style...

 mix of artists who have made an appearance in Aerial over its nearly 30 year run. There have been dozens more. Some of the magazine's poems have crossed over into mainstream acceptance, including some work featured in The Best American Poetry series.

External links

• Aerial magazine Web site