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Stop,rest a while. Good poetry should not be rushed, and there is plenty of good poetry to read here. There is much pressure to fill our waking moments with productivity both at work and in our leisure moments, and what carefree time we have can so easily be exhausted in front of that living-room cyclops: the television that demands so little of us. It is so easy to lose an appreciation for other interests. But, spend some time with these poets and they will repay you many times. Jay Frankston, in his prose piece About Poetry, mentions his annoyance at finding that at a poetry reading, most of the people there didn't seem to understand the poem that had just been read. He may have been annoyed with me too, for while I may enjoy the rhythm, the use of words and the richness of the language that the poet has used, I doubt that in a single reading I will have managed to retain and understand the poem. I need to spend time with a poem. I have spent time with these. Together with my friend and co-editor, Pat, I spend much time with the poems that are sent to us. We would not be so arrogant as to consider ourselves true editors or critics, but we are avid poetry readers and occasional writers. We believe that good poetry should not be so opaque as to become intellectually barren for the majority of readers but that a good poem should also not be so obvious in meaning or intent that it can be absorbed in the passage of a single reading and then forgotten. So, like us, take your time and return often to read again and perhaps make one or two friends among the poems. Chesil
POETRY
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