Kentucky Poetry Review records

Kentucky Poetry Review was founded in 1964 as Approaches by Kentucky poet Joy Bale Boone (1912-2002) and Lill Parrish, following their collaboration on the poetry anthology Contemporary Kentucky Poetry (1964), which Boone (then known by her first husband’s name, Bale) edited and Parrish designed. They were encouraged by the anthology’s reception, and “the expressed desire of…readers to continue to see the work of fellow Kentuckians” to establish a journal devoted entirely to poetry by that state’s residents.(Boone, “An Editor’s Memories of 20 Years,” Kentucky Poetry Review 20/2 [Fall 1984]) As Boone recollected in the twentieth anniversary volume, “[w]ith promise of thirty or so annual one dollar subscriptions for a modest publication, William Battrick and Robert A. Baker joined the editorial board, and Approaches-kpr has continued as a labor of love….”(Ibid.) As of 1964 Approaches was the sole publication in Kentucky devoted entirely to poetry and the only one to publish only Kentucky poets, the rationale being the perceived need “to encourage unknown Kentucky poets, to give them an outlet. Most of them were poets just to their families and closest friends and, with luck, their local librarians.”(Ibid) By the time Wade Hall (b. 1934) assumed chief editorial duties in 1975, Approaches was no longer Kentucky’s lone poetry journal, so beginning with the winter 1976 issue its policy was altered to include poems by non-Kentuckians, and the name changed to Kentucky Poetry Review. “[B]ecause of the vitality of poetry here [Kentucky] and elsewhere,” Hall explained in the Summer-Fall 1975 issue, “we feel that it is time to open the pages to poets outside the state. But let us quickly add this: Our base will remain Kentucky, and the bulk of the poetry we publish will be by Kentuckians.”(Hall, “Editor’s Notes,” Approaches 11/3 [Summer-Fall 1975]) This pledge was borne out during the following sixteen years of Hall’s editorship, and the names of Kentucky-born or -resident poets like Jonathan Aldrich (b. 1936), Joy Bale Boone, Gay Brewer (b. 1965), Lillie Chaffin (b. 1925), Billy C. Clark (b. 1925), Joseph Connelly, Sarah Litsey (1901-1996), Cora Lucas, Jim Wayne Miller (1936-1996), Charles Semones (b. 1937), Woodridge Spears (1913-1989), James Still (1906-2001), Jesse Stuart (1906-1984), Jane Stuart (Juergensmeyer) (b. 1942), Hollis Summers (b. 1912), and Allan Watson, continued regularly to grace its pages. Simultaneously, however, Kentucky Poetry Review became a publication vehicle for some of America’s most distinguished poets and authors, including Betty Adcock (b. 1938), Philip Appleman (b. 1936), Louis Daniel Brodsky (b. 1941), Michael Bugeja (b. 1952), Fred Chappell (b. 1936), Kelly Cherry (b. 1940), William Virgil Davis (b. 1940), Victor Depta (b. 1939), James Dickey (1923-1997), George Garrett (b. 1929), Donald Hall (b. 1928), Ann Jonas (b. 1919) James Laughlin (1914-1997), Barbara Kingsolver (b. 1955), David Madden (b. 1933), Heather Ross Miller (b. 1939), Roger Mitchell (b. 1935), Lenard Moore (b. 1958), Robert R. Morgan (b. 1944), Barbara Presnell (b. 1954), Leonard Slade, Jr. (b. 1942), Dabney Stuart (b. 1937), Daniel James Sundahl (b. 1947), Lewis Turco (b. 1934), John Unterecker (1922-1989), and Philip Lee Williams (b. 1950). Another change took place in 1977, when Kentucky Poetry Review initiated the policy of celebrating or memorializing individual poets or authors. Each such volume contains several poems by the featured author, along with contributions from others. The “Scope and Contents” section of this guide contains a complete list of these volumes and the individuals to whom each was dedicated. Among the most celebrated to be commemorated in this fashion by Kentucky Poetry Review were Wendell Berry (b. 1934), Ray Bradbury (b. 1920), Thomas Merton (1915-1968), John Jacob Niles (1892-1980), Reynolds Price (b. 1933), May Sarton (1912-1995), and Robert Penn Warren (1905-1989). In addition, in the spring of 1984 the Kentucky Poetry Review published a special issue devoted to the poetry of Susan Clay Sawitzky (1897-1981) and that fall produced a special twentieth anniversary issue. For the first two decades of its existence Approaches-Kentucky Poetry Review relied on subscriptions for its funding, supplemented by small grants, especially from the Kentucky Arts Commission. In 1984, however, Bellarmine College in Louisville became the journal’s institutional sponsor and publisher. In 1992, following chief editor Wade Hall’s retirement from Bellarmine, where he served as English professor, department chairman, and head of the Division of Humanities (1969-88), the journal ceased publication. In addition to Boone and Hall, Prentice Baker, Henry Tim Chambers, Jesse Franklin, Alice Scott, and Greg Swem all served on Kentucky Poetry Review’s editorial board, and “guest editors” occasionally oversaw the production of individual issues.