<<<<<<Ouachita Mountains, Garland County, Arkansas.
Flow…
In the middle of preparing this issue, I traveled with my family to the Ouachita Mountains in Southwestern Arkansas. The ancient, rolling Ouachitas are an anomaly in the US—a range running east and west, rather than north and south. My son John, who is studying to be a geologist, said the mountains claim their fame from quartz and mineral springs. Rushing water is part of the terrain, fast in flow after a rainy winter.
Flow. I came home from my trip and knew that was the word for this issue of Cable Street.
The flow begins with the issue’s four poets. The poetry of Marta López Luaces and Nancy Montemurro, whose work appears in translation, has a rare emotional fluidity—it is mellifluous in every sense of that liquid word. Bethany Besteman and Leonard Schwartz write poems that move as water does. The pressure is gentle but inexorable—and a fitting way to celebrate National Poetry Month this April.
Indigenous and endangered languages are a river of meaning, meandering through a world noisy with newcomer speech. Bronwyn Mills has crafted an insightful triptych on these languages, with help from the work of Christopher Sawyer-Lauçanno, which explores their translation, preservation, and power.
A torrent of virtues—courage, resolve, perseverance, and compassion—emanates from a series of four remarkable interviews with Black Americans conducted by Allen J. Davis and Tom Weiner,: “Revisiting James Baldwin on Black Rage.” Compassion also courses through Jan Schmidt’s “Walk With God.” This charming flash fiction evokes the spiritual presence of cats—animals every bit as divine for us as they were for the ancient Egyptians.
Seven paintings by visual artist and poet Nell-Lynn Perera channel what is timeless. Her work conjures rivers over rock and epoch over epoch—the whole of existence that is purposeful yet mystical. Mysticism bubbles up again in my own essay, “Inside Job,” on the translation of a poem by the Catholic mystic, writer, and philosopher, Teresa of Ávila.
Two Cable Street series cruise along to their next installments. Tobias Meinecke and Eric Darton present part two of their historical autobiographical fiction, “Hermann Klemm: The Vanished Publisher”—a tantalizing tale inspired by Klemm’s remarkable career and innovative publications. Wit, adventure, and a love of life saturate Christopher Sawyer-Lauçanno’s ongoing memoir, “Becoming.” In this raucous installment, there’s even a yacht with a singular history.
All this, plus a flood of great reviews, photos, and ¡VIVA! tributes to Lyn Hejinian, Benjamin Zephaniah, and Richard Serra. Read and enjoy—beside a mountain stream, or wherever you are in the stream of life.
—Dana Delibovi, for the Editors
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