Sulfur magazine was an influential, small literary magazine founded in 1981 by poet and award-winning translator [1] Clayton Eshleman and ran for 46 issues until the spring of 2000. The magazine published translations, poshumous writing by esteemed poets (many pieces previously unpublished), art, art commentary, innovative poetry by well-known and unknown poets, critical articles and reviews.
Sulfur unswervingly presented itself as an alternative to what some of us call 'official verse culture' (backed by The New York Times Book Review, The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, The Nation, and nearly all trade publishing houses, to the exclusion of contrasting viewpoints)," Eshleman said in an interview when the magazine closed.[2]
Eshleman said the magazine closed for a number of reasons: He was tired of the work of editing it, wanted to concentrate on his own writing, and the magazine had financial trouble. Toward the end, the publication, like many little magazines, had fewer than 1,000 subscribers.[2]
"If I were to have real financial backing I would have been tempted to widen the subscriber base, and to get the magazine into the hands of people for whom what Sulfur is might be a discovery," Eshleman said when the publication folded. But funding was diminishing. From 1993 to 1996 the magazine received $12,000 a year from the National Endowment for the Arts, but the support had dried up by 2000, which also contributed to the closure, he said.[2]
During its run of issues, Sulfur maintained a reputation as the premiere publication of alternative and experimental writing. This was due in no small measure to its impressive masthead of contributing editors and correspondents. These included Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Michael Palmer, and Eliot Weinberger as "Contributing Editors". The roster of "Correspondents" included: Charles Bernstein, James Clifford, Clark Coolidge, Jayne Cortez, Marjorie Perloff, Jed Rasula, Jerome Rothenberg, Roberto Tejada, Keith Tuma, Allen S. Weiss, and Marjorie Welish. The managing editor was Clayton Eshleman's wife, Caryl Eshleman.[3]