Hummingbird Press

Hummingbird, founded by Phyllis Walsh in 1990 with strong encouragement from her friend Cid Corman, is entering its thirty-first continuous year. Phyllis is still very much with us; Hummingbird magazine is Phyllis.

For twenty-two volumes, Phyllis selected the poems, wrote her “Editor’s Note,” and corresponded by hand religiously to all who submitted. She loved to write letters; it’s how she and Cid first connected.

Like the magazine, she was always brief and to the point. Phyllis’s letters on the Hummingbird letterhead, printed by Hynek in Richland Center where every Hummingbird was published, were on a trim half sheet mimicking a stacked double-page of the magazine—sometimes typed sometimes in her smooth cursive, always a gentle closing, often to the season. 

Here’s her first Editor’s Note:

Responses to our Hummingbird flyer have been gratifying. There is a nucleus of poets for whom such a magazine seems to fill a need. We appreciate your support and welcome your input as the mag evolves. (Vol. I No.1, September 1990)

And, another, as Hummingbird completed its first decade:

As we approach the Millennium, we hope Hummingbird continues to help our readers improve their inner lives as some of you tell us it does. May this contribute to improving the larger world as well.  We are grateful for your enthusiasm and support of all kinds. Peace and joy. . . (Vol. X No.2, December 1999)

With renewed appreciation all these years later, and as we approach the next step in the evolution of Hummingbird, we are again grateful for “enthusiasm and support of all kinds.”