I’ve realized recently that I’m a gardener at heart. I’ve always kept loads of potted plants around
, and, when there’s something to celebrate, I often buy myself and others potted plants rather than bouquets of cut flowers or other gifts. When I finally got my own yard, the game was on. I can stand looking at my little garden for hours. This year, I’m especially excited to see how many sunflowers we get underneath the bird feeder. I’ve realized that being a poetry editor here at Connotation Press isn’t that far off from being a gardener. I get to watch as all different voices grow up in different shapes, colors, patterns, and genres, each unique voice contributing to the garden. And then I get to watch the bees, butterflies, and birds flutter and buzz around in it. They’re both sharing life, many beautiful things coming together to make something bigger. I’m so lucky to be surrounded by poets and flowers and to be one of the gardening hands that helped it happen.
Our poetry garden this month includes poet Keith Montesano, who has written a series of poems based on movies. In each poem, the narrator watches quietly as someone is murdered in the main scene. They voyeurism in these poems reflects the movie-watching experience itself, but magnifies it. We live in a society that has become very voyeuristic, not only in movies and TV-watching, especially “reality” TV, but in social and professional networking sites, blogs and comments. The big-brother sense of being watched has probably never been stronger, with video cameras everywhere, GPS locators in our phones and other devices, our every purchase locating us (or at least our credit cards) for anyone with the ability or authority to find out – and on and on it goes. These poems use this cultural background to vitalize their sense of urgency and anxiety. As Keith said in my interview with him, these poems also touch on our decision either to act heroically, stepping up to help those who need it – or to quietly creep away and deal with the attending guilt.
Associate Editor Mari L’Esperance brings two poets with stunning poems and a great interview. Mari writes:This month, I bring you three poems and an interview with Mark Kerstetter, whose approach to envisioning and writing poems reflects his interest in bricolage, an aesthetic philosophy that promotes using whatever materials happen to be at hand. Kerstetter explains: “Wherever I happen to be, whatever I happen to be doing…, the world within my touch combined with my imagination are the elements of my poetry.” In particular, I appreciated our exchanges about visual artists Isamu Noguchi and Henry Darger; the experience of working outside the established parameters of creative and academic communities; and the importance of regular practice to achieving excellence of craft. I hope our conversation inspires you as it has me: “Girding canvas, mask and gloves, // he takes up goggles and rouge and begins.”
Lucia Cherciu’s evocative and sensuous poem “How Do You Forget Your Native Language?” is suffused with longing and memory, with what is lost and gained by leaving one home for another, and speaks to trans-generational interconnections and the grounding constancy of cultural identity, tradition, and ritual. This is a poem whose undersong is one of mourning and hope—for what could have been and for what might still be possible—and richly integrates both through language: “…with all those who have left, / I feel the tide of the river / waving its rhythm of words.”
Associate Editor JP Reese brings us two great artists this month. JP writes:Pete Mackey's work had me smiling at first read. Combining an insightful approach to the natural world with a clear-eyed perception of human nature, these poems entice, entrance, and demand that readers savor each finely crafted line again and again. Mackey's work contains Keats' requirements, beauty and truth. What more could a reader ask for than that?
Summer Qabazard's poem "Rain Song" is a love poem but not in the traditional sense. It soon becomes clear to the reader that the woman in the poem is both love object and poetry itself as the poem expands into an ars poetica of unique perspective. Her deft phrasings and imagery carry the poem beyond its boundaries into a place where poetry moves beyond earth-bound beauty.
Associate Editor Nicelle Davis brings us another of her fabulous interviews this month. She writes:David McAleavey leads us to the river and then under it. His poems are visual torrents into our fear of death and our resolves into rebirth. I love his work and am proud to present his poems at Connotation Press.
I hope you enjoy the flowers in our garden. Clip an especially wonderful one and place it on the desk of someone who will appreciate it, and our garden will grow.