Editorial Notes

(excerpted)

Spring is almost here, which can only mean that it’s time once again for CV2’s annual Poetry Only Issue. For those not familiar with CV2, this is our once a year issue of nothing but poetry; or perhaps better said, the issue where we let the poetry do the talking. As usual, you will find it has a lot to say. Whether it is last year’s 2-Day Poem Contest winning poem, “Early Morning, PMO” by poet Paris Elizabeth Sea, or Tanis MacDonald’s “Executrix,” or George Elliott Clarke’s edgy piece “Malcolm X: The Last Interview (February 21, 1965) with Vogue,” there is both a range and timbre of “conversation” that only poetry itself can contribute to the ongoing dialogue about life, verse and literature.

This spring marks yet another important milestone for CV2. It has been ten years since CV2 nearly slipped between the lines forever. Fortunately, for the effort of a whole bunch of earnest souls, it did not disappear, as this issue you now hold in your hands is testament. In early 2002, CV2 published its first issue under new management. Very appropriately we called it “Why Poetry?”and George Elliott Clarke, who had just won the Governor General’s Award for Poetry, was featured on the outside of CV2’s newly designed, bright orange cover and inside with an interview, new work, and conversations with several other poets.

So here we are nearly ten years later and George Elliott Clarke’s poetry has appeared in CV2 more than a few times since his first appearance in this magazine all those years ago, including the piece you will find in this issue. But the question “Why Poetry?” continues to inform every issue of CV2. Why? Well, ten years ago, the magazine we were trying to save had just about gone down the crapper—forgive the crude colloquialism—so it was important for us to try to articulate — both to ourselves and to potential funders — the value of the genre we proposed to support with a revitalized publication. It is not that we didn’t know why poetry was worth it; most of us were poets of some species or other, and it was more or less a no brainer for us. However, it’s one thing to know something is important because you care about it; it is another thing to communicate that worth to others who don’t necessarily see what you see or care about what you care about. Art, including poetry, continues to be an enigma in Western culture, something most of us both love and are scared half to death of all at the same time. And in some way that is the intrinsic value of poetry and all art: basically, it keeps us on our toes; it isn’t predictable; it transforms; it is a strange and impossible language to speak or master fluently. In other words, it keeps us guessing, and guessing is good—it moves us forward.

Clarise Foster

Editor