We recently stumbled upon an article on James P. Wagner (Ishwa) and how he edited some 130+ anthologies, and couldn’t help but wonder how he did it. Going through tens of thousands of poems is no little feat by any metric. Also, deciding what poems make it or not to publication is just amazement at another level.
The article recounts that the anthologist did not initially set out to achieve such numbers. “There was no real master plan to achieve this feat. It was just persistence. In fact, the first anthology I edited happened purely by accident.” said the apparently multi-talented anthologist in this interview with Yessiey. In fact, it would seem that he just went about his job one day at a time but consistently so. Following the above, it was only natural that as the years went by, the volume of work he put out grew in numbers and quite frankly, these numbers currently show no signs of going down.
If an anthologist just went about his job with love and passion only to wake up one day to the realization that he had edited at least 130 anthologies, can other writers, poets or even anthologists borrow inspiration to replicate such an exemplary feat? We think yes.
Recall that ongoing discussions on productivity and output seem to suggest technology is a huge enabler of both. In fact, today’s creative talents in the world of literature have access to a rich suite of AI tools such as Grammarly, Copyscape, Poemify, Evernote, ChatGPT, the Hemingway App, and others. These tools help literary creatives such as poets in a range of ways such as ideas, structure, organization, checks, scans, and more.
While the focus of this article is the staggering number of anthologies James P. Wagner (Ishwa) has put together over the years, we feel creative talents can achieve similar numbers in shorter time frames if they leverage technology properly. A couple decades ago, the poet did not have many writing prompts for writing. The poets of yesteryears relied heavily on instincts, nature and objects to put out more work. Well, today’s poets can find prompts by leveraging AI tools.
This goes beyond poetry and the world of literature as a whole. For instance, the project management space is witnessing an upward trend in the development and usage of performance-boosting tools like Monday.com, Jira, Wrike, ClickUp, Trello, Asana, Airtable, Basecamp, and more. Research shows these tools improve overall productivity in teams, and not just within the realm of projects.
Back to the subject anthologies, you may want to check out the following three which are some of James’ favourite work: Perspectives: Poetry Concerning Autism and other Disabilities (themed around autism), A Wreath of Golden Laurels (themed around poet laureates), and Eastern Sea Barbs (Themed around the East Coast of the United States). Beyond anthologies, James is an event organizer, and actor. He owns the Dog-eared Bard’s Bookshop and is a publisher for Local Gems Press which has been around since 2010. James encourages poets to leverage the powers of technology, community, and the resources they can find on the internet to whatever goals they may have set for themselves.