Harriet Monroe’s Poets’ Circular

Sent with a personal letter to a long list of poets, this manifesto-of-sorts stressed three main elements:

1. Poetry would aim to give poets their own place, without the limitations of a popular magazine and with a smaller audience
2. Within a 16-24 page limitation, Poetry would attempt to print “poems of greater length and more serious character” than other magazines could afford (Monroe). The magazine would be open to and print all kinds of verse – the only criterion is quality.
3. The magazine would pay its poets as well as offering annual prizes. Also, Poetry would strive to develop a low subsciption price (starting in 1912 at $1.50) to make the publication accessible and affordable.

"The success of this first American effort to encourage the production and appreciation of poetry, as the other arts are encouraged, by endowment, now depends on the poets. We offer them:

First, a chance to be heard in their own place without the limitations imposed by the popular magazine...
Second, ... poems of greater length and of more intimate and serious character...
Third, ... a public-spirited effort to gather together and enlarge the poet's public and to increase his earnings..."

Circular sent to poets by Monroe in August of 1912. (A Poet's Life 251)