Reflections on the Creation of a Literary Journal

By George Dickerson, Poetry Calendar

Now that Rattapallax has issued its first-anniversary issue (no. 3), it seems a good time to reflect on the literary journal's founding and growth. When publisher Ram Devineni, a young poet and award-winning film-maker from Philadelphia, came to New York in early 1998, he encountered Michael Graves and me at the Phoenix Reading Series. By that summer, he had convinced us to create what would eventually become Rattapallax. Ram had some publishing experience, Michael Graves had contacts among the poets, and I had the editorial background (The New Yorker, Story, Time). We felt that there seemed to be too few outlets for some of the more lyrical, classical and musical (less prosy, less agenda-driven) poetry we were hearing read by ourselves and other poets.

After trying out countless names, we settled on "Rattapallax," because we all liked Wallace Stevens' poetry and his onomatopoetic word for the sound of thunder. It was catchy. Best of all, nobody seemed to know how to pronounce it!

Well, we had a name but some uncertainty about what was to go into the magazine. We finally settled on a journal devoted simply to fiction and poetry, with artwork for visual enrichment. And all the work was to be selected only on merit, with no consideration given to the name or connections of the writers or artists--a credo we continue to live by.

We decided that the poems and stories should be there for the reader. (As the Broadway director and great acting teacher, Aaron Frankel, told one student: "I don't care if you ever feel it; your job is to make me feel it.") Each piece of artwork should not be just an illustration: It should be a poem in itself, yet resonate with the work around it. We try to orchestrate the poems, stories and artwork to lead the reader on a journey of music, emotion and idea, from one work to the next. (One can't just throw them in willy-nilly and expect to create the same result.) And the writing is edited--an experience that a very few writers have balked at, but that most have responded to with gratitude for the attention paid to their work.

Ram Devineni proved to be a visionary. He had the idea for a CD, with poets reading their poems from the journal, to accompany each issue. (When Poet Donald Hall recently saw the journal with its CD, he exclaimed: "This is a first!") Ram also created the Rattapallax reading series, with readings in New York, Philadelphia, Princeton, New Jersey, at the Walt Whitman Center, at the Harvard Coop, in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, London and Paris. Poets from the journal were traveling by train, bus, van, car and plane to participate. Writers were visiting our website at www.rattapallax.com--their poems (only from outside the U.S., please!). From one poet to another, one artist to another, the word went out that this was a special place. Our writers and artists were getting to know us and each other and were becoming friends. The community was being formed.

The journal is now carried by all the major distributors of literary magazines. Because of its success, Ram Devineni has launched Rattapallax Press--with publication this spring of books of poetry by Elaine Schwager and myself, and the artistic work of Allen M. Hart. Again, each book is accompanied by a CD or, in the case of Allen Hart's book, a CD-ROM--another publishing first!

From an idea to a journal to a press, what an exhilarating (and exhausting) journey it has been--undertaken for the love and challenge of doing it and, oh yes, gratitude for the hopes and dreams and craft of literary and visual artists who so graciously contribute their work to our mutual enterprise.

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