A conversation with Pitt Poetry Series Editor, Ed Ochester

The Pitt Poetry Series celebrates its 50^th anniversary this year, as does AWP, and its publisher, the University of Pittsburgh Press, just celebrated its 80^th last year. Pitt has been publishing the AWP Award Series in Poetry (now the Donald Hall Prize) winner for twenty-nine years.

How did the Pitt Poetry Series begin? What were your goals when taking over the series in 1978? The Pitt Poetry Series began in 1968 as a national contest that published the annual winning manuscript. I became editor in 1978 when Paul Zimmer took the job of director at University of Georgia Press. We’ve gradually expanded to fourteen books a year. What I wanted to do from the beginning was to widen our range. In the ’70s, most books from prominent presses seemed to me to be by white, male graduates of the Ivy League. I had nothing against those folks (I’m one), but I wanted to publish more women and more “minority” writers. I wanted the Series “to look like America.”

Describe your decision-making process for selecting work to appear in the series. Are there any particular aspects you look for? We now publish winners of the AWP and Cave Canem poetry prizes, and our own Agnes Starrett first book prize (named after the founder of the Press). We have one first reader for the Starrett, a hardy and smart person who’s published at least one full-length book with a major press; I make the final choice, usually from eight–ten finalists. I read all the manuscripts from poets who’ve published a book or more. I look first for competence, and then for things I haven’t seen before in terms of content, voice, style. I think we have the most diverse and interesting list in American poetry.

Having edited the series for many years, what change or trend in poetry excites you? What makes you wary? I am wary of people who think that typographical manipulation is of major importance—using varied typefaces, fading type, etc. Almost anything might be a useful element in poetry, but reliance on gimmicks seems to me to be boring and—frankly—stupid. The most exciting aspect of poetry now, I think, is the emergence of a large number of very talented black poets. Probably the major cause of this phenomenon is Cave Canem; the result is a new Harlem Renaissance, only bigger.

What are your plans/hopes for the future of the series? The arts are facing the devil in the Trump administration. Just the usual bourgeois devil—art is useless, pointless—but the devil nevertheless. One of its aims is the death of the National Endowment for the Arts. If that happens, it’s going to make things more difficult for writers in general, and poets in particular, because of the NEA’s support of small press publishing. But the Pitt Poetry Series doesn’t depend on NEA funding—we haven’t applied for a grant in years. The new Director of the Press is highly supportive of us and has indicated he’s open to increasing the number of books we publish. In recent years, the Chancellor of the University has been strong in his praise of us. So, in what is likely to be a difficult time for publishers of poetry, and the loss of some, we seem relatively secure.