NewPages Guide to Literary Magazines
The Bitter Oleander
A Magazine of Contemporary International Poetry & Short Fiction
4983 Tall Oaks Drive
Fayetteville, NY 13066-9776
Phone: (315) 637-3047 Fax: (315) 637-5056
E-mail: info@bitteroleander.com
Simultaneous submissions: yes Email submissions: no Reading period: Year round but July Response time: 1 month Payment: none Contests: yes (see website) ISSN: 1087-8483 Founded: 1974 Issues per year: 2 Distributors: Ingram Average pages: 128 Sample copy (postpaid): $8 Copy Price: $8 Subscription (Individuals): $15 Subscription (Libraries): $12
Publisher’s Description: The Bitter Oleander is a biannually published journal of contemporary poetry and short fiction. Although it publishes mostly domestic poetry, its primary focus continues to be on poetry in translation with a particular concentration on the imaginative creation of language from a very individualized perception. It has had work represented in the Best American Poetry (1999) and recognized as Best Literary Journal (2005) through Public Radio’s "Excellence in Print" award
SPECIALTY: Each issue contains a featured poet which includes a large selection of his or her poetry as well as an in-depth interview with editor Paul B. Roth. Since a great deal of emphasis is on contemporary poetry written outside the U.S., TBO has interviewed such poets as Marjorie Agosín (Chile), Ruxandra Cesereanu (Romania), Alberto Blanco (Mexico), Nicomedes Suaréz-Araúz (Bolivia), Ye Chun (Chinese), Aase Berg (Swedish), Martín Camps (Mexico). It has also published the work of such award winning American poets as W.S. Merwin, Robert Bly, Charles Wright, Duane Locke, Colette Inez, Alan Britt, Silvia Scheibli, Ray Gonzalez, Christine Boyka Kluge, and Anthony Seidman.
“The Bitter Oleander is the epitome representation, and the
vividly idealized lodestone of the heights a periodical can achieve
within the alternative small press. The thought clarity is
brilliant... excellence is the noticeable reoccurring rhythm woven
throughout the tapestry of this work.”
— Joyce Metzger (Small
Press Review)
Current issue:
Volume 14, No. 1 / Spring/2008
This issue features in part the work of the Virginia poet,
Serena Fusek. Her immediate and cogent language draws the reader
into her universe of dark and light, of highways and
undergrounds, of skies and hidden ceilings. This feature also
presents new short fiction by Mary Ann Cain, Joel James Davis,
Julius James DeAngelus, Tolu Jegede, and Joshua Malbin. Besides
work by North American poets such as Rob Cook, Lara Gularte,
Patrick Lawler, Inès Pujos, and Anthony Seidman, there are
translations from the Spanish of the Peruvian poet Harold Alva,
the Mexican poets, Alberto Blanco, David Huerta, Martín Camps
and César Silva, and the great Magda Portal from Peru. Rounding
out the issue is the Zapotec poet Pancho Nácar and the
Portuguese poet Rose Alice Branco.