The Legacy of Glen Phillips and Front Porch Poetics

I’m reflecting again about the literary community’s loss of Glen Phillips, editor and publisher of Front Porch Review. Just the other day, on The Poetry Space_, Tim and Katie and their regular guests were discussing ‘The Classic Rattle Poem’. In this conversation, they were brainstorming possible names for the type of poetry that seems “classic” in this sense. A kind of poetry that also finds a home in New York Quarterly, in line with Raymond Hammond’s mission and the legacy of William Packard. A kind of poetry that resembles much of what you might find in ONE ART. The term “front porch poetry” was floated and discussed. (I’ve been having a few ongoing conversations with editors about other possible names for this school of poetics.)

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Glen Phillips’ aims were slightly different in his mission for the Front Porch Review. His journal was intentionally geared towards an older audience.

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Here’s an About Statement for Front Porch Review on Duotrope:

“Front Porch Review is an online literary magazine. Its publisher, Glen Phillips of Park Ridge, IL, toiled mightily in the vineyards of educational and IT publishing. After forty years of vainglorious effort, he decided the best he could do for the common good was to build an electronic front porch displaying the significant artistic work of our older generation, men and women coming late to the creativity game and with something of value to express. His democratic symbol, a front porch, typically a mannered appendage, can also be concrete steps, wooden planks, iron railings, cardboard boxes, even a wool rug at the entrance of a Bedouin's tent. Whatever its form, a front porch is where we, young and old, congregate; where we assemble, gather, mingle, congeal, where we get together. And once we're there we speculate, pontificate, prevaricate, and expostulate; occasionally we speak words of universal truth.”

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The following link is to an interview with Glen Phillips for ‘Six Questions For…’ from 2014.

What are the top three things you look for in a submission and why?
“Poetry: straightforward language, poetic imagery, comprehensible messages as found in the works of Mary Oliver and Pablo Neruda. Why: our readers do not want to stumble over flights of fancy.”

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From a little interview with Glen with a nice takeaway:

What advice would you give others?

“Nothing beats patience and perseveration. Nothing.”

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Glen Phillips died on March 24, 2024

The Front Porch Journal website is down.

My poem ‘Tomorrow’ appeared in the April 2024 issue.

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My Poems Published in Front Porch Journal

Time Out of Mind (Written in May 2012, published in the July 2017 issue of Front Porch Review)

Screen Shot (Written in July 2016, published in the January 2018 issue of Front Porch Review)

Tomorrow (Written in November 2023, published in the April 2024 issue of Front Porch Review)

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Time Out of Mind

Who has the time
to read inscriptions 
on tired old statues

steam vegetables 
on the stovetop

or compose a heartfelt
letter to a childhood friend
no longer around?

Who has the time anymore
to listen to an overture 
all the way through 

or even read a poem
without hearing that little voice
in the back of your mind 
ask when you last checked
if the world has ended?

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Screen Shot

I wish you were in the passenger’s seat
when music shapes the space

Attempts to salvage with new eyes
catch us in the grip of curated nostalgia 

Remembrance as a souvenir 
with a lost reference point

Rough gems slow worn smooth
as the rapids of experience wash over us

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Tomorrow 

You'll remember 
you're not such a bad person 
after all

You'll put on fresh clothes 
that flatter 
because you are comfortable 

You'll drink 
from your favorite mug
a just right amount of warmth 

You'll do 
what you have to do
& shrug off nonsense 

You'll make a full day
as only you can 
with little effort 

You'll ignore 
what you do not owe time 
& enjoy small moments 

You'll treat yourself 
to a calm evening 
at your own pace

You'll find good sleep 
since you will have earned it 
by being kind to yourself 

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A final note.

It’s sad to me how many of the journals I’ve published in over the years are defunct.

Very little of the work remains accessible.

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