"Aerial is focused primarily on the avant garde and the experimental, broadly defined", according to the magazine's website.
[1] This focus could be defined as a poetry and poetics that grew out of a counter-poetic tradition that took root in 20th-century North America.
Broadly defined, the various groups and "schools" found antecedents in the diverse theories and practice of John Cage and Gertrude Stein, George Oppen and William Carlos Williams, Charles Olson and Robert Duncan, or Madeline Gins and Shusaku Arakawa.
Contributors to Aerial over its run of publication have included Lyn Hejinian,[2] Carla Harryman, Elaine Equi, Charles Bernstein, and Tina Darragh[3] Peter Seaton, Jerry Estrin, Leslie Scalapino,[4] Rae Armantrout, and Ron Silliman[5] are also among the eclectic mix of artists who have made an appearance in Aerial over its nearly 30-year run.
Some of the magazine's poems have crossed over into mainstream acceptance, including some work featured in The Best American Poetry series.