To read a poem is an exercise in discovery. Just as to write one is, most often, to set out toward uncharted territory. There is no map, but the poem tells the poet when they are heading in the right direction. Each and every navigation of line, of image, is to come upon fresh territory of mind, emotion, feeling-tone and understanding. Once complete, the well realised poem in turn offers the reader the chance to discover the world anew.
The poets in Issue #6 have taken up this challenge and each offer us, in the encounter with their work, the opportunity to share in their discoveries. Be that Alix Rochaix’s “dam burst of/ … creative agony”, called forth in “surreal” “monitor light”, as the poet in Crossroads bravely explores a newly solo, grieving self. One who would “… prefer to be seen as mad rather than bad.” Or perhaps the exquisite detailing in Victoria Brookman’s Here was one of the tiny vicissitudes, “triumph[s]” and hum-drum of daily life, demonstrating the universality of our shared experience: that we all meet the past tense eventually. The poet in Hiroki Kosuge’s delightfully quirky hybrid-genre piece NiKKi challenges us to reconsider established boundaries of plant, animal and human in a digital age, while Willo Drummond’s Badu Mangrove Morning calls us to respond to the ethical gauntlet thrown down by mangroves in a warming world. Finally, a dare blooms both fierce and delicate in Laura Gerges’ A Murky Etheree, as the poet tempts a lover with the discovery of a dark past.
Each of these poets provide for us in the work presented here a set of coordinates which point to the oft-bittersweet discoveries of life, of love, of earth, ancestry and spirit. If you are bold enough, intrepid reader, they invite you now to hoist the sail and discover for yourself their fragile, fleshly bounty.