Boulevard magazine, published by St. Louis University, is an American literary magazine that publishes award-winning prose and poetry. Boulevard has been called "one of the half-dozen best literary journals" by Poet Laureate

Poet Laureate

A poet laureate is a poet officially appointed by a government and is often expected to compose poems for state occasions and other government events...

 Daniel Hoffman in The Philadelphia Inquirer

The Philadelphia Inquirer

The Philadelphia Inquirer is a morning daily newspaper that serves the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, metropolitan area of the United States. The newspaper was founded by John R. Walker and John Norvell in June 1829 as The Pennsylvania Inquirer and is the third-oldest surviving daily newspaper in the...

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Overview

Richard Burgin

Richard Burgin (writer)

For the Polish-American violinist,, see Richard BurginRichard Burgin is an American fiction writer, editor, composer, critic, and academic. He has published fourteen books, with one more forthcoming, and since 1996 has been professor of Communication and English at St. Louis University...

 founded the magazine in 1985

1985 in poetry

Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* The term "New Formalism" was first used in the article "The Yuppie Poet" in the May 1985 issue of the AWP Newsletter in an attack on the poetry movement...

 and continues as the editor.

The magazine has won city, state, and national grants and awards. Many poems, stories and essays are reprinted in anthologies such as The Best American Poetry series, The Best American Short Stories, The Pushcart Prize, O.Henry Prize Stories, and The Best American Essays

The Best American Essays

The Best American Essays is a yearly anthology of magazine articles published in the United States. It was started in 1986 and is now part of The Best American Series published by Houghton Mifflin...

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Poet Charles Simic

Charles Simic

Dušan "Charles" Simić is a Serbian-American poet, and was co-Poetry Editor of the Paris Review. He was appointed the fifteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 2007.-Early years:...

 has called it one of the eight best literary magazines in America, and Independent Publisher says the poems in Boulevard are "better than anything that you'll find in The New Yorker in a typical month.."

Poets and authors who have appeared in the magazine include Alice Adams

Alice Adams (writer)

Alice Adams was an American novelist, short story writer, and university professor....

, John Ashbery

John Ashbery

John Lawrence Ashbery is an American poet. He has published more than twenty volumes of poetry and won nearly every major American award for poetry, including a Pulitzer Prize in 1976 for his collection Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror. But Ashbery's work still proves controversial...

, John Barth

John Barth

John Simmons Barth is an American novelist and short-story writer, known for the postmodernist and metafictive quality of his work.-Life:...

, Ann Beattie

Ann Beattie

Ann Beattie is an American short story writer and novelist. She has received an award for excellence from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters and a PEN/Bernard Malamud Award for excellence in the short story form. Her work has been compared to that of Alice Adams, J.D. Salinger,...

, Robert Bly

Robert Bly

Robert Bly is an American poet, author, activist and leader of the Mythopoetic Men's Movement.-Life:Bly was born in Lac qui Parle County, Minnesota, to Jacob and Alice Bly, who were of Norwegian ancestry. Following graduation from high school in 1944, he enlisted in the United States Navy, serving...

, Mark Doty

Mark Doty

Mark Doty is an American poet and memoirist.-Biography:He was born in Maryville, Tennessee, earned his Bachelor of Arts from Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, and received his Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from Goddard College in Vermont.In 1989, his partner Wally Roberts tested...

, Marilyn Hacker

Marilyn Hacker

Marilyn Hacker is an American poet, translator and critic. She is Professor of English at the City College of New York....

, Donald Hall

Donald Hall

Donald Hall is an American poet. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 2006.-Personal life:...

, Philip Levine

Philip Levine (poet)

Philip Levine is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet best known for his poems about working-class Detroit. He taught for over thirty years at the English Department of California State University, Fresno and held teaching positions at other universities as well...

, David Mamet

David Mamet

David Alan Mamet is an American playwright, essayist, screenwriter and film director.Best known as a playwright, Mamet won a Pulitzer Prize and received a Tony nomination for Glengarry Glen Ross . He also received a Tony nomination for Speed-the-Plow . As a screenwriter, he received Oscar...

, Joyce Carol Oates

Joyce Carol Oates

Joyce Carol Oates is an American author. Oates published her first book in 1963 and has since published over fifty novels, as well as many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction...

, Carl Phillips

Carl Phillips

Carl Phillips is an American writer and poet. He is a Professor of English and of African and Afro-American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis....

, Francine Prose

Francine Prose

Francine Prose is an American writer. Since March 2007 she has been the president of PEN American Center. She graduated from Radcliffe College in 1968 and received a Guggenheim fellowship in 1991....

, Ruth Stone

Ruth Stone

Ruth Stone was an American poet, author, and teacher.-Life and career:In 1959, after her husband, professor Walter Stone, committed suicide, she was forced to raise three daughters alone...

, Charles Simic

Charles Simic

Dušan "Charles" Simić is a Serbian-American poet, and was co-Poetry Editor of the Paris Review. He was appointed the fifteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 2007.-Early years:...

, Mark Strand

Mark Strand

Mark Strand is an American poet, essayist, and translator. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1990. Since 2005, he has been a professor of English at Columbia University.- Biography :...

, James Tate

James Tate (writer)

James Tate is an American poet whose work has earned him the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. He is a professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters...

, and John Updike

John Updike

John Hoyer Updike was an American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic....

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The type of submissions its editor likes

In a 2003 interview, Burgin said, "My suspicion, especially of many MFA writers, is that they are writing what they think will get published and are not sufficiently interested in exploring the form. [...] In Boulevard's slush pile, I find very little experimentation in form and structure. The stuff is tame. I see very little experimentation in point of view, in language. The subject matter is generally politically correct. Political correctness is the most noxious disease and enemy of the literary artist of our current time."

Honors and awards

Works originally published in Boulevard have gone on to be recognized in prestigious anthologies, and have garnered many reputable awards.

External links

• Boulevard magazine home page