Joe Hoover, S.J., America Magazine

Joe Hoover, S.J., is the Poetry Editor for America Magazine. Most recently, he is the author of “O Death, Where is Thy Sting? A Meditation on Suffering" (Orbis Books, 2020).

How did you become America’s poetry editor?

I’m a Jesuit brother. I’ve been in the Jesuits for 18 years and an editor I met, Fr. Matt Malone, a Jesuit priest at America, asked me to be the poetry editor in 2013. People want to see Jesuits in Jesuit institutions, so that gave me a leg up. I’ve written a lot too over the years, not so much poetry, believe it or not, but mainly creative nonfiction and basic journalism.

What do you do in your role as poetry editor?

Initially the job was just selecting the poems, editing them if need be and moving them along to publication. But I also do a lot of other editing and writing around faith and spirituality and arts and ideas. As a poetry editor, one of my main priorities is to reach out to young poets, poets of color and poets who have kind of a big reputation out in the world, to amp up our profile and get really strong stuff.

How do you determine what type of poetry gets into the magazine?

Other poetry editors would have different ways of judging, but I can just rattle off for you: mystery, takes us some place new, internal rhythm, surprise, humor, passion or daring passion, political, juxtapositions—the way that great writing juxtaposes things together you would not think of being together and it moves. A couple of those in any poem would be something I’d look at more closely.

How has your role as poetry editor shaped you as a writer?

When you read a lot of good writing, it makes you want to write better. Also, reading novice writing from someone who doesn’t really possess yet the craft tools makes you realize what you don’t want to write like.

How has the coronavirus pandemic impacted what you’re writing about right now?

I write a lot of plays, and I wanted to write a play. I usually have some political meaning or commentary on secular culture or religious themes or mysticism or social justice, but I wanted to write something that was a romantic comedy and just have fun. So, during COVID, it felt nice to write something that did not have depth to it, that did not talk about suffering, that’s not trying to understand things. During a plague or during any tragedy, people like Jesuits or any good-hearted person, would want to go out and help people, be out in public, do things in the streets, be of use, minister to the sick and go to the shelters. And we are told not to go to the shelters and stay inside and not do that. So, I wrote a piece on that to help me explain that to myself. Most things that I write are just me trying to understand something that I believe I can’t quite articulate yet.

America Magazine offers a media internship and a postgraduate fellowship.

— Caroline Hamilton '21