Joseph Parisi joined POETRY as Associate Editor in 1976 and was Editor-in-Chief from 1983 to 2003, the longest tenure after that of founder Harriet Monroe. He also served as Executive Director of the magazine's parent organization, the Modern Poetry Association (now The Poetry Foundation), where he created and directed its many local and national educational programs.
Besides 100 Essential Modern Poems by Women co-edited with Kathleen Welton (published in 2008) and 100 Essential Modern Poems (published in 2005), his other books include the two-volume history-in-letters of POETRY'S first ninety years, Dear Editor: A History of POETRY in Letters: The First Fifty Years, 1912-1962 (published in 2002) and The POETRY Anthology, 1912-2002 (also 2002; reissued in paper in 2004), co-edited with Stephen Young. Between the Lines, the concluding volume of the history--covering POETRY's last four decades to the 90th Anniversary in 2002-- was released in the fall of 2006 by the distinguished Chicago publisher, Ivan R. Dee.
A frequent speaker here and abroad on modernist literature and American poetry, Parisi holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Chicago. Among his several awards, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2000, and was elected a By-Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge, in 2002.
Kathleen Welton is a thirty-year veteran of the publishing industry and is currently an editor and freelance writer, book reviewer, and publishing consultant for authors and organizations, including the editor of the Emily Dickinson International Society Bulletin. She has served as Director of Book Publishing for the American Bar Association as well as Publisher for IDG Booksand Dearborn Trade.
She is a member of the Academy of American Poets, the Emily Dickinson International Society, and the Poetry Society of America. Born in Santa Monica, California, she studied at Stanford University.
