Founded by MFA Alums, Kettle Blue Review Offers Home for Contemporary Poetic Voices
Insiders to the literary world will tell you we’re living in a golden age of poetry. With help from social media and literary journals, the form is thriving. For the past four years, Kettle Blue Review (KBR), an independent online poetry journal founded in 2014 and run by three Northwestern Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing alumni, has been adding their distinct vision to the scene.
Having met in the University’s poetry workshops in 2010, Lana Rakhman, Virginia Smith Rice, and Aaron DeLee formed a tight-knit cohort while working under renowned poets such as Ed Roberson, Simone Muench, and Reginald Gibbons. After graduating, they wanted to stay as involved as possible in the literary community and continue to advocate emerging voices in poetry. Rakhman started KBR and brought on Rice as an editor to help solicit work and read submissions. DeLee later joined after having several poems published in the journal’s fourth issue.
“The MFA program taught me how to read for and manage a literary journal, since all of us took turns working for TriQuarterly while we were in the program,” said Rakhman, who served a term as TriQuarterly’s poetry editor, as did DeLee.
Starting from scratch with KBR, Rakhman knew it’d take some work to establish the journal’s online aesthetic and presence, but the editors have done well by relying on a strong community to help shape their publication. Rakhman added, “We focused on solicitations for the first few issues, and found that word spread organically. We also played with how to use social media to engage potential readers. I'm very grateful that when we started out, the selection of poetry was fairly seamless; Virginia and I have a similar aesthetic, and I trust her deeply when it comes to the poetry we publish.”
The journal’s in-person editorial meetings also give the editors a chance to catch up, discuss poetry, and collaborate on other projects. Rice in particular has remained close with many Northwestern writers.
She explained, “We really established a bond during the program, and many of us continue to work on different literary projects together. In addition to editing KBR with Lana and Aaron, Christine Pacyk and I have recently been writing collaborative poems together. I also loved working with Simone, Ed Roberson, and Reg Gibbons. Each one of them took time to help me develop as a poet, and to shape my thesis, which became the basis of my first poetry collection.”
Working with Simone Muench is an experience all three KBR editors cite as integral to their growth. DeLee noted, “Simone especially did a great job of exposing us to various contemporary poets and pushed us as artists. She even had us making chapbooks of our own work, to give us the full experience of publication, from writing, to revising, to printing and binding.”
Published biannually, KBR recently launched its eighth issue, which included work from established poets such as Maggie Smith, Andrea Witzke Slot, and Ace Boggess, as well as many new writers at the beginnings of promising literary careers.