|
A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR
Welcome to the second issue of the recently-revived Hawk
& Whippoorwill. Here you will find poems that tie the
places we live in to the lives and temperaments of the inhabitants;
here are moments of nature becoming a window into life;
here, human landscapes are made strange by what we perceive
as the intrusions of other animals. These thoughts catch
me at the moment, writing, as I often do these days, in
an online word-processing application. We tend to forget
that while humans can create materials, forms, and whole
environments not found in nature—and new digital environments
daily grow around us—nature still holds the keys to
understanding our species. Able to think outside and beyond
it, we are as yet learning from (and, therefore, beholden
to) the natural world.
Lodged as we are between the organic and the inorganic,
we are not always conscious of our place. Something like
the unexpected presence of another species has to awaken
us to the strangeness of it. Even then, the thought that
stuns us is not apt to be how improbable the current state
of the species seems, but instead what they are doing here,
or anywhere: as though they were intruders. I have our poets
to thank for these reflections and for their submissions;
gathered here, their work helps us in our ongoing recognition
of such ideas. These thoughts demonstrate the depth of August
Derleth's original theme for the journal as well as the
breadth of its potential. Nature poetry speaks, as always,
to the deepest persistent concerns of humanity. —Jon
Wooding
VOLUME 1 NUMBER 2, WINTER 2008
- Michael P. McManus, "Watcher"
- Samantha Mineo Myers, "Viburnum"
- E.P. Schultz, "Gijik Marsh"
- John Miller, "Marginal"
- Todd Boss, "The God of Our Farm Had Blades"
- Nora Clark Liassis, "Memorial Service"
- Tom Sheehan, "Rubble,
Barn Style"
- John Miller, "To the Apartment Complex Laundry
Room"
- Amy MacLennan, "Coastsiders"
- Margaret Bashaar, "The Girl Who Lives in Caves"
- Tom Sheehan, "From Nahant, Atlantic Rub, Pacific
Skip"
- Stan Long, "Cathedral Grove"
- Catherine Chandler, "Dandelion"
- Jeffrey Warzecha, "Looking
for Frost’s Woodpile"
- Illustration: 'White-footed mice
& red oak acorns'
(after a bronze tile by Nancy Webb)
|
