S&R readers have probably noticed that we like poetry around here. Something we have been talking about for quite a while, in fact, is why we didn’t take the next step and become a poetry publisher. Now, after months of planning, we’re doing precisely that.

On Monday, we will publish our first poem as a poetry journal. If you’re wondering, no, this won’t affect everything else we do. We’ll continue to be the same online magazine that we’ve always been, only now we’ll be offering up original literature.

Here’s how it will work. We discussed issuing an adjunct publication every month or quarter, but the realities of electronic publishing are such that there’s no reason why something like this shouldn’t occur as soon as we accept something. We don’t wait a month to publish a political blog or a music review or an economic analysis or an environmental report, right? In a way, it’s like what you see at a traditional pub like The New Yorker: you’ll have a feature, turn the page, and there’s a poem.

We invite you to review the submissions guidelines if you’re interested in appearing at S&R, or perhaps if you know a talented poet. Our criteria are spelled out there, and we have intentionally left the door wide open. We don’t want to put a lot of restrictions on artistic genius. We want to move poetry forward, because we feel like things have gotten a bit stagnant. Ultimately, as the title above indicates, we’re looking for poetry that we didn’t know we were looking for. Surprise us. Blow us away. Leave us no choice but to publish you. New voices welcome, as are established authors.

There’s more: we’re also adding fiction and nonfiction. I’ll let Jim Booth, who’ll be editing that section, step up with his own comments here in the coming days.

Meantime, tune in Monday for “Progress Note” by Joseph Reich. And spread the word.