On this, the first Friday of National Poetry Month in the USA, I’m pleased to introduce readers to Brecht De Poortere, a Belgian writer who spent his childhood in Africa and currently resides in Paris, France. An economist by profession, Brecht pursues writing as a passion, often drawing from his experiences growing up abroad. His work, which includes short stories and nonfiction, has been published in various literary magazines such as The Baltimore Review, Consequence, Grain, and X-R-A-Y, earning nominations for Best Small Fictions and Best Microfiction.
You might wonder what any of this has to do with poetry. I wanted to include Brecht this month for his work curating an extensive list of literary magazines based on the poetry they publish (see his Google Sheet listing the 400 top litmags here). This is a new list project for Brecht; he’s better known for his ranking of over 1,000 English-language journals (also available as a Google Sheet here). Initially inspired by a desire to navigate the submission process as a new writer, he began ranking magazines by their Twitter followers in 2021, later expanding this into a comprehensive database that he updates periodically. I see both lists as a public service to the writing community because, in addition to the rankings, they provide a trove of information useful to writers.
Read on for Brecht’s takes on writing, listmaking, his ranking methodology, and poetry.
1. Your short stories and nonfiction blend vivid experiences from your global upbringing with a sharp, economical prose style. How do you approach crafting your voice. Do you lean into your economist’s precision, or do you find yourself pulling more from the chaos of memory and travel?
It’s funny you should say that. I’d never thought about my prose style as being economical but I guess you are right, and I suspect that my training as an economist and my job as a researcher have both taught me to be sharp and concise. The Economist style guide is something that has been stuffed down my throat repeatedly! And maybe it was also the influence of writers like Willem Elsschot — he himself an economist — famous for his “business novels” like Cheese, Convincing, and The Leg. For me, there is poetry in simplicity. At the same time, there is so much beauty and sadness I try to capture in my writing, but there is only so much words can do. Description is often distortion, so I resort to the unsaid. Writing is as much about what is not said, as it about is said. I guess, in a way, that is being economical too!
2. Growing up in Africa and now living in Paris must expose you to a rich tapestry of literary traditions. Which writers or cultural influences — whether African, European, or beyond — have most shaped your storytelling, and how do they show up in your work?
I fell in love with books at the age of 15, when I attended a French school in Rwanda, and I had a very inspirational teacher. I voraciously read Zola, Balzac, Flaubert, Proust, Stendhal, and I suspect those have left an indelible mark on my taste in literature and on my writing. I then moved to Tanzania and attended an international school in English, where we were taught some of the African greats: Chinua Achebe, Mariama Bâ, Athol Fugard. Then later in life, I fell in love with American literature: Steinbeck in particular, but also McCullers, Hemingway, Twain, Melville. My influences are very eclectic, reflecting the life I have led.
3. Your fiction has earned accolades, but I’m curious about your relationship with poetry. Do you write it, read it voraciously, or simply admire it from afar? What is it about the form that draws you in?
I don’t dare write poetry! I admire it a lot. In my opinion, it’s the highest form of literature, literature at its most refined, the ultimate mastery of language, and therefore unattainable for mere mortals like me! Maybe it’s because my first exposure to poetry was to Baudelaire and Verlaine. Their poems struck me as being perfect and, ever since, poetry has remained exactly that for me: something I marvel at from afar.
4. Your database of literary magazines, including poetry journals, is a gold mine for writers. Walk us through your process. How do you decide what makes a poetry magazine rank higher, and has curating these lists changed how you view the poetry publishing landscape?
Once again, I suspect it’s my background as an economist that led me to rank literary magazines. When I started writing, I was overwhelmed with the number of journals out there and I felt I needed help deciding where to submit. There were a few rankings out there — Erika Krouse’s and Clifford Garstang’s — but none were doing quite what I wanted a ranking to do and so I set out to create my own. My ranking has gone through a number of methodological changes over the years as I try and refine it, but ultimately, it is based on objective data like prizes and anthologies which, for poetry, include Best American Poetry, Pushcart and Best of the Net. For me at least, these rankings have helped me better understand the literary landscape.
5. What is your take on the health of poetry in 2025? Are we in a golden age of innovation, a slump of sameness, or somewhere in between? How do you see your ranking contributing to its future?
I wouldn’t dare express myself on the state of poetry in 2025! But I am aware that my ranking may affect the literary landscape to some extent. In physics, the observer effect is the disturbance of an observed system by the act of observation. And I suspect that by measuring the “quality” of literary magazines, I may be changing the state of what I’m measuring. It will affect where writers submit their writing. I’ve heard really nice stories about writers who discover new journals through my database and then get an acceptance, including one to the New England Review! I also hope that this ranking will encourage literary magazines to nominate their writers for prizes and anthologies — something which, as writers, we all appreciate.
Andrew Careaga 
This is a fascinating Q&A–thank you!