Samuel Green’s poem, Grandmother, Cleaning Rabbits, inspired a certain elemental gravity from a handful of our contributors: Tim Barnes with his Writing a Knife; Joe Bisicchia’s See beyond the Missing Leaves; Amy Miller’s The Vegetarian Dismembers the Chicken; Doug Stone’s Another Battlefield; and Elijah Welter’s In the Winter of Separation. Death, loss, the knife, and/or the Fall/Winter season are recurring themes with which the reader will likely resonate.
Another handful of poets responded to the prompt to address an author or character that had stayed with them long after the reading. Marilyn Johnston addressed Olive Kittredge; Brigitte Goetze spoke to James Joyce; Ben Sloan, Eva Braun; and Cristina White called up Georges Simenon and Oscar Wilde. Would your conversation be the same? Or have you been sifting through your responses, words still unspoken? Sometimes cultural history deserves the direct address as these poets demonstrate. See what you think.
It is our good fortune to read within these pages a number of established poets in addition to Samuel Green: Tim Barnes, Amy Miller, George Perrault, and Erica Goss among others. There are several Oregonian poets you will likely recognize as well as names new to the reader. I hope you will enjoy the exploration as I have.
For your visual pleasure, we honor the labors of potters in this issue, especially those who stoked the fires of the East Creek Anagama kiln in Willamina. Alice Martin-Kunkle shares pictures of her wood-fired wares as well as of the kiln’s firing (Back Page). Betty Turbo invites us into her Green Series with two paintings on wood. Brady Chambers celebrates the opening of his Independent Print Works with one of his handmade screen prints.
Happy Autumnal Equinox! May the art and poems on these pages prepare us to turn inward with the season and celebrate the riches we find there.
Rachel Barton
