Poetry Issue #5: Heroes July 28th, 2020 July 28th, 2020 Letter from the Poetry Editor: Of Heroes, Poets, & Prophets by Steve Granzyk any of the poets in the summer issue, dedicated to heroes, provide acutely observed accounts of those desperately trying to save lives among the hundreds of thousands of patients who have COVID-19. Besides their descriptions of the physical and emotional suffering of patients, they provide sympathetically imagined first-person accounts of the fears and exhaustion ...
Read MorePoetry Issue #4: Hope March 31st, 2020 March 31st, 2020 Letter from the Poetry Editor: Timeworn Challenges, Timeless Remedy by Steve Granzyk Reading the entries for this issue, roughly half for the mental health contest and half for this issue’s theme of Hope, followed shortly by the emergence of the COVID-19 virus, might seem to some a daunting challenge. As always, the rewards of hearing so many authentic voices more than compensated. At some point, though, I ...
Read MorePoetry Issue #3: Pain Continued December 31st, 2019 December 31st, 2019 Letter from the Poetry Editor: Commonality and Difference by Steve Granzyk he development of a body of scientific knowledge about disease and illness necessarily identifies commonality—both of etiology and of remedies—yet healthcare itself must be sensitive to individuals and their specific circumstances. So too in the arts—in poetry—writers have learned from established practices of the past, and forms such as the sonnet, the villanelle, or the ...
Read MorePoetry Issue #2: Pain September 19th, 2019 September 19th, 2019 Letter from the Poetry Editor: Pain, Poetic Gifts, and the Reader’s Role by Steve Granzyk n the autumn of 2007, I was up late reading The Best American Essays 2006. By habit, I had been flipping through the volume’s pages, skimming opening paragraphs and bits of dialogue—you know, looking for something enticing. That’s how I encountered Marjorie Williams’ “A Matter of Life and Death.” After an unsettling ...
Read MorePoetry Issue #1: Conversation March 15th, 2019 March 15th, 2019 Letter from the Poetry Editor: The Humanizing Power of Civil Words by Steve Granzyk n The Republic, Plato claimed poets should be banned from the debate of issues within his idealized society because poetry, he said, “inflames the passions.” Yet, chances are, if you remember a piece of writing, it’s because it moved you. Many devices writers use are designed to form that deeper connection. Today, empathy ...
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