WhimsyLand

I have been seduced into signing up for Netflix.  Once you do the math, it's a no-brainer.  If I go to Blockbuster more than twice a month, I'm even.   Anyway, I put the return Netflix envelope in my mailbox, put the flag up, and at about 3 PM my mailman (who must plan his entire day around making me the last stop) picks up the little red envelope.  From there, it presumably goes back to the post office to be sorted.  Here's what completely amazes me:  the next morning, I get an email from Netflix acknowledging receipt of the very film I dropped into my mailbox 18 hours before.  How in the hell do they do that?  The only mail I've ever seen move faster are rejections from New American Writing.

~~~~~

I've got the new BAP Stats up, detailing the poets and publications featured in BAP since 1988.  There's a lot to comment on, other than the aesthetic issues, but let me give you a short introduction:

The New Yorker continues to lead the all-time BAP inclusion list with 84 poems, followed closely by Poetry.

The big litmag winners this year were Kenyon Review and Five Points, both with 5 poems;  Cincinatti Review (which was never in BAP prior to last year) with 4;  Margie, Gettysburg Review and Georgia Review with 3;  New England Review (way to go, CDY), Michigan Quarterly Review, LIT and APR with 2. 

Publications that seldom miss being in BAP include Ploughshares, Yale Review, New Republic, Threepenny Review, and Boston Review, but they were batting .000 this issue.

First timer literary journals in BAP include Hayden's Ferry Review, Subtropics, The Hat, Iodine Poetry Review, MiPoesias, Nightsun, Endicott Review, Failbetter, Ecotone, and Atlanta Review.

Though Donald Hall had held the record for years as the most included poet, John Ashbery overtook him in 2002, and continues as the most cited poet in BAP.  Hall and Charles Simic now share the second place with 12 BAPs, followed closely by James Tate with 11 (including one this year).

There was a time when online journal had no chance of getting a poem into BAP.  This year we find The Hat, Failbetter, and MiPoesias.

First-time contributors to BAP included

Ball, Jesse
Benjamin, Krista
Bernstein, Ilya
Brewer, Gaylord
Christopher, Tom
Cronk, Laura
Gannon, Megan
Gorham, Sarah
Grennan, Eamon
Gutstein, Daniel
Gwynn, R. S.
Hawkey, Christian
Kapovich, Katia
Kasischke, Laura
Kraushaar, Mark
Larios, Julie
Livingston, Reb
Newman, Richard
Pawlak, Mark
Phi, Bao
Retallack, Betsy
Rosenberg, Liz
Rosser, J. Allyn
Seshadri, Vijay
Thompson, Sue Ellen
Towle, Tony
Townsend, Alison
Webb, Charles Harper
Yezzi, David

That's a pretty good percentage for any BAP.  Congrats, of course, to our blogmates Reb, Laura, and Laura.

More tomorrow.