Words from the editor

CV2’s open issue is meant not just literally as an issue open to all themes, but also to emphasize the openings that are offered by a well-wrought poem. It is in this spirit that content has been chosen,with the hope that this issue will offer you, the reader, new vistas. Whether you choose to look into yourself or beyond into the myriad of landscapes that the imagination is wont to conjure is completely and utterly subjective, but the talent it takes to offer this accessibility is not.

In this issue we have collected a range of viewpoints, including those of feature poet and composer Charlene Diehl, who is well known around these parts for her innovative forays into new performance frontiers, and award-winning Canadian poet Steve McOrmand, whose poetic apertures are lyrically breathtaking.

Also in this issue, CV2 takes a dip in uncharted waters with a new feature column authored by poet and non-fiction author, Maurice Mierau. Over the next four issues, Maurice will explore the ifs, ands and buts, not to mention trends, of form as it continues to have an impact on innovation in Canadian verse.

In this issue you will also find the winners of CV2’s annual 2-day contest. For those of you not familiar with CV2’s annual challenge, you might what to check out the details on our Web site — www.contemporarverse2.ca. In short, every April to help celebrate National Poetry Month, CV2 offers the 2-Day Poem contest, where for ten bucks you get forty-eight hours and ten words to create the best poem you can. Growing in popularity—we had over two hundred entrants last year—the contest offers a range of cash prizes, $300.00 for first, $150.00 for second and $75.00 for third, as well as three honourable mentions. All finalists receive paid publication and a complimentary subscription to our wonderful journal.

In returning to the portals of verse, I think it is important to say that the “open” of this issue also references the continued receptivity of CV2 to new and perhaps unfamiliar voices. In this issue you will find a virtual chorus of amazing and fresh talent such as that of Madhur Anand, Steven Mayoff, Daniela Elza and Jenn Currin alongside veterans Evelyn Lau and George Murray.

CV2 welcomes Métis poet André Carbonneau to our pages for the first time. And for those readers who have wondered at the rationale for publishing French-language work without translation, it is because translation is, as many translators will tell you, in many ways an art in and of itself. The medium of the art of poetry is language, and in the effort to celebrate the unique bilingual heritage of Canadian literature and culture, CV2 must remain open to the original inspiration of art created in French. Over the next year it is our intention to offer a truer representation of poets creating in French and English by providing online and in-print resources to readers and writers in both languages.

So without further ado, I invite you all to open yourselves to yet another serving of great poetry and wish you all a hearty read until next time.

—Clarise Foster