Once again we have an issue of several distinct voices from the Pacific Northwest, the Mid-West, the East Coast, South Africa, Wales, India, and Australia, with ten poets specifically from Oregon.
From Gail Peck’s ekphrastic poem, “The Damaged Child,” to Jude Brigley’s “ At My Mother’s House,” Sherri Levine’s “A Kind of Disaster,” Megan Munson’s “Marathon,” Gargi Mehra’s “In the Bowels of Her Birkin,” Judy Shepps Battle’s “Frozen Tears,” and Linda Wimberly’s “When,” we are taken through a variety of trauma including poverty, abuse, anorexia, oppression, grief, and mental illness. These are stories that need to be shared. These are voices that need to be heard.
Another cluster of poets situate the reader between human and nature, not as separate as we sometimes assume, as in Elizabeth Cohen’s “When I Was a Bird,” Katherine Edgren’s “Little Brown Beauty,” and Laura DiNovis’ “The Crab.”
We received some lovely watery poems in response to Petersen’s “A Municipal Servant Serenades at the Pier”—Marjorie Power’s “It’s Pronouned Yah-Hots,” Lauren Scharhag’s “Montego Bay,” and Sheila Sondik’s “Bodega Bay.”
One of my personal favorites is the piece by Karen Jones, “We’ll Be Coming,” a rollicking poem which so magically brings to life her story behind a song so many of us shared as children. No spoilers! Just take a read.
My thanks to the grown-up voices of Sue Fagalde Lick and Penelope Scambly Schott and to the several other poets on these pages who make me happy to be an editor. Salud!
In addition to some fine art submissions by Jim Zola and Frances Van Wert, I want to offer special thanks to Terri Thomas (poet) and the Benton County Historical Museum’s exhibit, Beyond Words, which is where I found works by Leslie Green, Judith Sander, and Kathy Jederlinich–they knock my socks off!
–Rachel Barton
