What does a literary magazine editor look for?

I'm not an expert on the topic but I did serve as a literary magazine's poetry editor for over a year and as co-editor and webmaster for a year for my program (MFA in creative writing bilingual and online program at University of Texas at El Paso). The magazine was called Quicksilver. We have stopped receiving submissions, so before you go to submit here, you should know that our doors are temporarily (?) closed.

As a poetry editor I tended towards contemporary work, packed with good imagery, a nice attention to line breaks and language (not too floral or poetic but scintillating and fresh). The form should match the content and like good fiction should make a leap, almost a disassociative or loose association of ideas that somehow seem organic to the form.

As a co-editor of fiction and non-fiction I gravitated towards the work of writers that presented itself in the opening with a hook, and followed that up with plain and surprising language that didn't stumble back on itself in cliches. A father might piss in milk jugs because he's too lazy to use the bathroom rather than holding his little girl's hand and saying it is 'okay' when she pees her pants. Something unexpected. But really if you want to know what the taste is of an editor the best way to find out is to read some of the past issues. Maybe the editor has a fetish for ubra hipster travel writers, therapeutic jaunts into painful moments, nature enthusiasts or poets who imitate Whitman, Ginsberg, Li-Young Lee, Espada, Rich or Dove.

My first publication

I did it. I managed to get a literary magazine to publish my work. For this magazine I submitted both works of fiction and poetry. The editors both responded briefly but at least it wasn't an automated rejection and one was actually an acceptance for the poetry.
How did I do it?
This is kind of sneaky but I think it helped my chances. I went onto the Poets and Writers website at http://www.pw.org/ and looked for the most recently reporting literary magazines or rather the newest magazines accepting online submissions and simultaneous submissions.
That's where I found this new little gem. Blue Lake Review.
The editor misspelled my name but other than that I'm positively glowing that a poem got picked up. Check out the April 2011 edition at http://bluelakereview.weebly.com.
The image of the jester was a little offputting, but maybe I'll be nominated for a pushcart prize for poetry...I might be getting ahead of myself.