''The Reaper'' was a

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

literary periodical which played an important role in establishing the poetry movements of

New Narrative New Narrative is a movement and theory of experimental writing launched in San Francisco in the late 1970s by Robert Glück and Bruce Boone. New Narrative strove to represent subjective experience honestly without pretense that a text can be absol ...

and

New Formalism New Formalism is a late 20th- and early 21st-century movement in American poetry that has promoted a return to metrical, rhymed verse and narrative poetry on the grounds that all three are necessary if American poetry is to compete with novels an ...

. It was founded in 1980 and ran until 1989; a double issue of numbers 19 and 20 was the last. ''The Reaper'' was founded and edited by Robert McDowell and Mark Jarman. It was started at

Indiana State University Indiana State University (ISU) is a public university in Terre Haute, Indiana. It was founded in 1865 and offers over 100 undergraduate majors and more than 75 graduate and professional programs. Indiana State is classified among "D/PU: Doctor ...

. For the earlier issues the art director was Michael K. Aakhus; for later issues

Thomas Wilhelmus Thomas may refer to: People * List of people with given name Thomas * Thomas (name) * Thomas (surname) * Saint Thomas (disambiguation) * Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church * Thomas the A ...

served as fiction editor.

Donald Hall Donald Andrew Hall Jr. (September 20, 1928 – June 23, 2018) was an American poet, writer, editor and literary critic. He was the author of over 50 books across several genres from children's literature, biography, memoir, essays, and includin ...

contributed a review of the first ten issues in Issue 10. The piece was entitled 'Reaping the Reaper'. His first paragraph runs: "Most poems in the first ten issues of ''The Reaper'' are bad. Many are bad in familiar ways." But he went on to say the magazine "is an encouraging phenomenon because it howls with dissatisfaction."''The Reaper,'' Issue 10, 1984. page 8

Footnotes

References

* Jarman, Mark, and McDowell, Robert: ''The Reaper Essays,'' Story Line Press, 1996, . 1980 establishments in Indiana 1989 disestablishments in Indiana Defunct literary magazines published in the United States Indiana State University Magazines established in 1980 Magazines disestablished in 1989 Magazines published in Indiana Mass media in Evansville, Indiana Poetry magazines published in the United States {{US-lit-mag-stub