From the Directory of Poetry Publishers
23rd Edition, 2007-2008

One of the things I ask editors in the annual survey form from which this directory of poetry publishers is compiled is to name five poets whom that editor has published recently. Of course there are many ways to measure a poet’s popularity. This is just one of them.

I’ve been compiling this list and calling it the “Sweepstakes” for twenty years now and each year the list comes out slightly different from the year before. First on the list this year, as last year, is Virgil Suarez of Tallahassee, Florida. Second is Lyn Lifshin of Vienna, Virginia, with Simon Perchik (Brooklyn, New York) third. Six poets are tied for fourth place.

I’m pleased that both poets, Suarez and Lifshin, wrote forewords for this 23rd edition of the Directory of Poetry Publishers. Suarez details his transition from novelist to blue-collar poet influenced by Charles Bukowski. Lifshin describes her life in poetry as an “outsider.” Both, in my opinion, give valuable insight into the writing and publishing of poetry in the twenty-first century.

The frequency curve of statistical distribution, if you will, continues to reflect the very populism of poetry in this age. The curve is a long, flat one with the poet named most often (Suarez) getting 38 entries out of more than five thousand. As far as this directory and these responses are concerned, no single poet holds the national attention.

--Len Fulton, 2007

The top ten (actually twelve) entries go like this:

Rank   Poet   (Entries)

1       Virgil Suarez (38)
2       Lyn Lifshin (37)
3       Simon Perchik (16)
4       B.Z. Niditch (15)
4       Billy Collins (15)
4       Albert Goldbarth (15)
4       Walter McDonald (15)
4       Denise Duhamel (15)
4       Gerald Locklin (15)
5       W. S. Merwin (14)
5       John Grey (14)
5       Bob Hicok (14)