Ingrid Swanberg            Warren Woessner

  Editor-in Chief               Senior Editor

Abraxas Press, Inc. is a 501(3)(c) non-profit, charitable organization publishing the irregular poetry  magazine ABRAXAS. Our mission is to foster contemporary poetry of the highest caliber, presenting outstanding work by both new and established writers to a wide and varied readership.

ABRAXAS relies upon subscriptions, sales and cash donations for primary support in meeting publication costs. A Supporting Membership is $70; A Sponsorship is $100. Subscribe here! All donations are tax-deductible. Please consider making a donation.:

Founded in 1968 by James Bertolino and Warren Woessner, ABRAXAS was one of Wisconsin's first independent little magazines. Bertolino co-edited ABRAXAS 1 and 2, edited 3 and 5, and discontinued his association after 5. Woessner edited numbers 4 & 6-10, when David Hilton joined as a contributing editor. ABRAXAS 14/15 was a joint effort by ABRAXAS and Chowder Review (edited by Ron Slate). Issues 16-22 featured reviews of small press poetry books (excluding ABRAXAS 20, Bright Moments: A Collection of Jazz Poetry, now in its third printing). ABRAXAS PRESS has also published 22 pamphlets, chapbooks and books, including Essays and Dissolutions, by the late Darrell Gray, Clinches, by Ray DiPalma, The Moving Journal, by Jim Stephens, and The Part-Time Arsonist, by F. Keith Wahle.

In 1981 Ingrid Swanberg assumed editorship, returning ABRAXAS to a format primarily featuring poetry (from an all-reviews format). Woessner remains Senior Editor; the late David Hilton discontinued his association as an editor in the 1980s though he continued to publish his poetry in ABRAXAS into the late 90s. Swanberg edited ABRAXAS 23/24, the Special Madison Issue, and ABRAXAS 25/26, the Special Wisconsin Issue. Subsequently, she put together nos. 27/28 (1983), 29/30 (1984), 31/32 (1985), 33 (1985), 34 (1986), 35/36 (1987), 37, the Twentieth Anniversary Issue (1988-89), 38/39 (1990), 40/41 (1991), 42/43 (1997), 44/45 (2006), 46 (2007), 47 (2010), 48 (2012) and 49 (2015). Under Swanberg's editorship the magazine's format has expanded to include poetry in translation, a commitment fully developed with 38/39 and 40/41, in which ABRAXAS published a substantial selection of César Vallejo's poetic sequence Trilce, taken from the only authorized edition published by Vallejo in Lima in 1922, and published in ABRAXAS for the first time since 1922 anywhere. ABRAXAS 38/39 and 40/41 present 52 of the 77 poems of Trilce in the original Spanish in a new English translation, with a critical commentary by translator próspero saíz. Since 1983, ABRAXAS has offered poetry in translation from Spanish, French, Portuguese, Swedish, German, Polish, Hungarian, Russian, Chinese and Sanskrit, including poems by Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen, Siv Arb, Homero Aridjis, Christian Arjonilla, Antonin Artaud, Stanislaw Baranczak, Yolanda Blanco, Yves Bonnefoy, Antonio Cisneros, Sandor Csoori, Pablo Antonio Cuadro, Helen Dorion, Gunther Faschinger, Tu Fu, Thomas Jastrun, Margarita Leon, Antonio Machado, Pablo Neruda, Imre Oravecz, Jose Emilio Pacheco, Marcelin Pleynet, Hans Raimund, Liu Shahe, Yan Shih-Bo, Marie Uguay, Wang Wei, Yogeshvara, Zhu Xiao-Zang, and more.

ABRAXAS' primary commitment is to contemporary American poetry, presenting work by both established and lesser-known writers. Contributors over the years include A.R. Ammons, Michael Andre, Ivan Argüelles, marcia arrieta, John M. Bennett, Douglas Blazek, Jane Blue, Joseph Bruchac, Jeanne Bryan, Diane Burns, Charles Bukowski, Grace Butcher, David Chorlton, Leonard Cirino, Andrei Codrescu, Jim Cohn, Jack Collom, Mary Crow, Roselyn Elliott, David Lincoln Fisher, Stuart Friebert, Diane Glancy, Anselm Hollo, Albert Huffstickler, Will Inman, John Jacob, George Kalamaras, Maurice Kenny, T.L. Kryss, Denise Levertov, Philip Levine, d.a.levy, Duane Locke, Gerald Locklin, Jami Macarty, John McKernan, Andrea Moorhead, Sheryl L. Nelms, B.Z. Niditch, Achy Obejas, Theresa Pappas, Simon Perchik, John Perlman, Judith Roitman, Dave Roskos, próspero saíz, Thomas R. Smith, Joseph Stanton, David Steingass, D.E. Steward, Carl Thayler, William Stafford, D.R. Wagner, Marine Robert Warden, Roberta Hill Whiteman, A.D. Winans, William Winfield, Christina Zawadiwsky, et al. As ever, ABRAXAS seeks to discover new and authentic talent. Recognized across the country as one of the best of the literary independents, ABRAXAS continues to afford an increasingly rare opportunity to emerging writers for their work to be chosen on the basis of merit, and to be presented in the company of the best contemporary poetry.