Emergence
Bienvenidos…Willkommen…Welcome, Dear Readers, as those of us who live in the temperate zones wake up to Spring and all of us, to the Spring issue of Cable Street. Though we’ve gone by a couple of different names in the past, this issue marks the eleventh year of our publishing internationally-sourced work for you all, wherever you are. Back issues can be accessed via the drop down “Issues” at the top of our page, including a link to back issues differently named.
I have put up the photo of the Arabian leopard, half the size of those roaming the sub-Saharan plains, I am told, not only because these magnificent creatures need our support—as does the rest of the natural world these days—but also, should you wish to contact Panthera and give them your support as well.
Indeed, speaking of nature, under Portfolio our fellow editor Jan Schmidt has added her brother, Mark Schmidt’s, stunning photographs as he has become a nature photographer after retirement. I, too, am contributing the first part of an essay, “A Little Lower than the Angels,” which deals with the dilemma of H. sapiens‘ relationship to the rest of the natural world, and what has influenced our perspectives on that issue (with a little of my own experience with polytheism thrown in for good measure.) Ultimately I hope to deal with the topic of how we incorporate animalia into our (adult) fiction.
Co-editor, Dana Delibovi, has posted poems by Jyotish Gopinathan, Jonie McIntire, Paul Connolly, and Joshua Walker. She has also witten a memoir/essay, “Voice Lessons” about her own journey as a poet, ending with a quote from one of my favorites, Charles Simic. Additionally Delibovi has posted four reviews of poetry books for our Remarkable Reads section, including one on contemporary Italian poetry and one on reading poetry in several translations via Zoom.
Under Sojourn, our estimable co-editor Hardy Griffin’s evokes an immersive and tender moment in Tokyo.
To return to Jan Schmidt, under Soundings, she offers three poems by brunson (yes, no caps and only a single name) with, as the section’s title suggests, an added audio of the poet reading the work. We do hope you can listen. Schmidt remarks on serendipitously meeting him on the street in Brooklyn when asking directions from him as a passerby. And, speaking of chance street encounters, under Memoir she has also posted a short piece on that subject from her Book of Miracles. Last but not least, and back to the visual, under Enfants Terribles, Schmidt gives us an interview with artist/painter Anthony Varalli.
For our Translation feature we offer “Translating Leonard Schwartz’s ‘Exchange'” with the work and a fascinating piece by Vuslat D. Katsanis on her challenges translating the piece into Turkish.
Now, many of us have been saddened by the news of poet and publisher, Ed Foster’s passing. A number of years ago he was my department head when I worked at Stevens Institute of Technology and it was he who facilitated my working at a university in Istanbul, Turkey. He was a friend to writers on the forefront of poetic contemporary and avant garde craft—writing as a living art as opposed to the safe and, for lack of a better way to put it, ‘pretty.’ Lisa Bourbeau, who was very much a part of Ed’s Talisman press and its books and magazine, (now no more) has put together a collection of work for us from friends and those he celebrated and mentored in the literary world. We offer it to you under the section, “A Tribute to Ed Foster.“
And I must confess that I also always connect Eric Darton with the visual arts as well as with his formidable work as a writer, and as such his choice of Insight photos continue to cheer us on, make us pause for some serious thought, and otherwise visually provoke us. His Vintage Insight is a further illustration of my piece on H. sapiens and the natural world, especially under colonialization. Darton does, however, go on to offer three short pieces under Fiction.
We also offer Brian Cullman’s ¡Viva! for reggae legend Jimmy Cliff.
— Bronwyn Mills, for the Editors
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