Evolution of The World
To understand how The World magazine has changed over the course of its 58 issues, the number of regular contributors to the magazine should reveal how strong of a backing it has, though that may result in less diverse poems. The bar graph to the right shows the fraction of regular contributors divided by the total number of contributors within a certain time-frame, where we took anyone that contributed twice or more to be a regular. For example, there were about 300 contributors for the first 10 issues and 150 of them contributed at least twice, so we consider half of the contributors to be regular.
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After the first twenty issues, there is a downwards trend in the number of regular contributors, so later issues of The World have more poems from different authors but lack a strong network of poets.
Top Contributors
Analysis: Looking at the top contributors to The World Magazine throughout different issues sheds light on the social and aesthetic networks at play in the Poetry Project at St. Marks Church. It reveals which poets were directly involved with the Poetry Project and the editors of The World. The first 30 issues were published under the head editor Anne Waldman, which explains her consistent presence. After Waldman had stepped down from her role as editor, The World magazine underwent quite a turbulent phase, in which the next 11 issues (from 31 to 41) had a new editor.