Greetings all.

The New Trad Journal, a publication dedicated to new creative work employing traditional (especially ancient) verse forms, with an emphasis on contemporary subjects. We will launch the first themed issue in 2013, and are currently seeking collaborators. Creative contributions will of course be welcome, although we have not made a call for submissions. Right now we are looking for collaborators to join with us in setting the direction of the project and pooling skills in design, layout, editing, grant writing. It should be emphasised that skills to contribute (in the core team) are optional; passion for poetry is not. This is a labour of love (although we aim to pay our writers as decently for their work as we can).

We will be having an initial meeting in the next week or two. If you are interested, or have questions, please email: editor (at) newtradjournal (dot) org.

From the (as-yet skeletal) website, here's the gist of what we're about:

The New Trad journal will be an ongoing experiment in contemporary engagement with traditional, especially ancient, literary forms. Our premise is that the stylistic innovations of the twentieth century, whether in high modernist seriousness or postmodern irony, have exhausted themselves and given way to the empty repetition of once-radical gestures. One can hardly leaf through a literary textbook or attend a seminar without encountering the same formulations in praise of the transgressive: blurring the boundaries, disrupting the linear narrative, confounding the reader’s expectations.

It is our conviction that genuine innovation can no longer be produced out of a desire for novelty: that moment is passed. It is, on the contrary, by vigorous encounters with its roots, both creatively and critically, that culture is refreshed. We should emphasise that we refer here not to the recent pre-modernist past, but to the ancient roots of literature. Think Lönnrot, Wagner, or Walcott’s Omeros—not James McAuley.

Please don't hesitate to get in touch.