Welcome to Issue 10
"One gets tired of searching for a little place in the openness of days
Of the mask over the mask over the mask" —from “Una se cansa” / “One Gets Tired” by Juana M Ramos Isn’t this what we’re all speaking of in these days of pandemic—exhaustion, masks, visors, gloves, barriers, distance? One gets tired indeed. And yet reading the poems of this issue’s Pocket Anthology, the second half of Poemas en New York presented by guest curator Marithelma Costa, actually woke me up. I laughed at Lazzaro’s eating of a canary, felt disgusted at the sights and sounds of Mr. Kadir’s lunch, and delighted in Vermeer’s patience akin to “that of fruit trees ripening.” I mourned the loss of Kamau Brathwaite, and listened to the birds as they speak “to us and to everything else that lives.” How incredible the goddesses of this issue’s InSights, and the single trillium flower amidst the brown leaves. |
In short, Issue 10 brought me round and dispelled the lethargy of these pandemic days. May it do the same for you!
Note: A ¡Viva! celebrating the life of Nicaraguan poet Ernesto Cardinal is forthcoming in Issue 11, and we are delighted to say we will be publishing a number of Extras! between this issue and the next.
— Hardy Griffin for the Editors
Note: A ¡Viva! celebrating the life of Nicaraguan poet Ernesto Cardinal is forthcoming in Issue 11, and we are delighted to say we will be publishing a number of Extras! between this issue and the next.
— Hardy Griffin for the Editors