Light was founded as a print journal in 1992 by retired postal worker John Mella.

Mella personally published the journal until 2008, when he founded the non-profit Foundation for Light Verse with a $500,000 gift from poet Joyce La Mers.

[1] After Mella's death in 2012, the magazine was relaunched as an online-only, semiannual publication, edited by his handpicked successor, poet Melissa Balmain.

The all-volunteer staff includes poets Kevin Durkin, Allison Joseph, Julie Kane, and Gail White.

The magazine has published the verse of Wendy Cope, Thomas M. Disch, X. J. Kennedy, John Updike, and Richard Wilbur, among many others.