When Deborah Ager and John Poch founded 32 Poems a decade ago, they did so largely because they felt significant poems were being neglected. It was clear to them  (from their previous editorial experience and from their time teaching and participating in workshops) that exciting work was going unpublished, read only by the lucky few who saw those poems in manuscript. In addition to offering such work a print home specifically designed for intimate and uncluttered reading, they also committed themselves to championing their poets and poems after publication, in the space between journal and book where so many valuable poems are forgotten. The record of 32 Poems reprints in such series as Best American Poetry and Best New Poets and on such “best of” sites as Verse Daily and Poetry Daily is a testament to their efforts, as is the 32 Poems anthology, Old Flame, forthcoming from WordFarm this summer.

It was also that special perspective on an editor’s role and responsibilities that attracted the current editorial team to the journal. In recent months we have returned to the notion that a poem’s publication should not begin its disappearance and we have asked ourselves what else we can do to draw more attention to the work that has excited us.

When the new issue went out a few weeks ago, we asked the poets of 32 Poems 10.1 to engage with the work of their fellow contributors by selecting a poem to examine in terms of craft and aesthetic, by considering how it dialogues with their own work, or by simply dramatizing the experience of reading a poem that thrills them. In effect, we’d like to host a conversation that ranges from poem to poem, poet to poet, a discussion that allows us to read the issue alongside one another and to revisit the work through the lens of another writer.

We’ve been thrilled by our contributors’ enthusiasm for this project, and beginning tomorrow, we’ll be sharing their responses here on the 32 Poems blog in a weekly feature that we are calling “Contributors’ Marginalia.” While our poets will be initiating these meditations, it is our hope that the exchange will expand to include the larger community of 32 Poems readers and friends. Ultimately we want to invite each of you to think through these poems with us and to join us in celebrating the lasting pleasures of their language.

—George David Clark