Words from the editor

An open issue is by nature amorphous. Openness in poetry is perhaps no easier to pin down. For the better part of the twentieth century, free verse was the “open” form, a break from the centuries of conformity in rhyme and metre in English verse. But has free verse itself become confining? I would say yes, at least partially—the seemingly limitless possibilities of free form have reached an extreme with visual poems, sound poetry, concrete verse, and with sleight-of-hand “experimental” or “avant garde” techniques (most of which originate in the 1920s or earlier).

This is not to say that these forms are second-class, or that we should all churn out iambs and trochees. There is, however, flexibility in allowing ourselves to rhyme, or to use other classical versifying techniques, occasionally, or at least be receptive to it. After all, mixture of voice is a hallmark of good poetry.

Then there is the matter of form and content. English poets in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries were able to critique manners savagely because the form of the couplet lent itself to devastating irony. This might seem highly mannered now, but no doubt future generations will spot numerous shortcomings with our approach today. Among the many things poets can learn from Marshall McLuhan is that the form of a poem says as much about the poet’s aims as the words, images, and sounds do. Great poets will be aware of these expectations; lesser ones will often sacrifice form for content or content for form.

This is my roundabout way of saying that poets can and should fit the poem to itself. While you could write a clerihew on the recent death of a head of state, it would take a more-than-common talent to pull off.

In this issue, you will find a mix of form and formlessness, including free verse; a pantoum; a found poem; both the prose poem and its cousin, the haibun, and several pieces neatly divided into unrhymed couplets. Marni Norwich’s “All the Crazy Boys” makes good use of refrain, but without partaking in a modish gravitation toward a particular poetic form. While experimentation with form is fine in moderation, only incurable obsessives would want to read ghazals, or villanelles, or centos, or glossae, or haiku exclusively for a prolonged time.

As for another sort of openness, Mathew Martin’s “Mary” employs three languages—und warum nicht? Mark Abley appears here in an interview as Anne Szumigalski’s literary executor, but he is himself a humane and amusing poet with a recent collection, and a thoughtful non-fiction author, frequently on the subject of language. I do not mean to gnathonize (1) Abley when I say that his Spoken Here—like Christopher J. Moore’s In Other Words or Adam Jacot de Boinot’s Meaning of Tingo—proves that no tongue has a monopoly on elegant expression. My thoughts go out to the Montreal writer, who is recovering from a serious illness as I write this.

You will also find here Sharon Caseburg’s interview with Bosnian-Canadian poet Goran Simic, which originally was to have appeared in the At Odds with Tragedy issue. It’s not really out of place here, though. Goran Simic shows at once how a poet can be open to the world and how Europeans can be open to poetry. Anglophone North American readers, alas, rarely bother to read poetry in or from languages other than their English— unless it is fashionable, as Rumi now seems to be. Goran Simic is also a man open to many interests, and is, in addition to being an internationally renowned poet, also a successful playwright, bookshop-restaurant owner, and committed political activist.

Finally, openness as a theme works its way through the issue, and is viewed in often startlingly different ways. Eugene Dubnov, who grew up in the Soviet Union, presents the openness created by the tumble of fall leaves as an eternal reincarnation, as the dormancy and long winter of trees yielding to the life of humans and animals. It is easy to read political allegory into this, but there is more to the poem than that. In contrast to Dubnov, Ingrid Ruthig casts openness as a terrifying door, with a soldier ready to parachute from the “womb” of an aircraft to every possibility of instant death below.

Openness is nothing less than life itself, so as with life, I hope you will enjoy this issue and keep an open mind.

—A. J. Levin

1 Gnathonize: To flatter (obsolete)