---

"Poetry is concerned with using with abusing, with losing  with wanting, with denying with avoiding with adoring  with replacing the noun. It is doing that always  doing that, doing that and doing nothing but that.  Poetry is doing nothing but using losing refusing and  pleasing and betraying and caressing nouns. That is  what poetry does, that is what poetry has to do no  matter what kind of poetry it is. And there are a  great many kinds of poetry." 
​
[Gertrude Stein (1874-1946), U.S. author. "Poetry and Grammar," Lectures in America, Random House (1935).]

The Irish Special edition launch at the
Cork International Poetry Festival 2017

The Blood And Poetry Of Non-belonging by Nikola Madzirov

Where Does Light Come From? by Arian Leka

From Self-Portrait with Dogwood: A Route of Evanescence by Christopher Merrill

Why Read War Poetry? by Constance Ruzich

José Carlos Becerra translated by Forrest Gander

Girl in a Forest by Elline Lipkin

Marieke Lucas Rijneveld (Translated by Vivien D. Glass)

Poems by Mile Stojić translated by Charles Simic

Deep Fish—Three Passes at Larry Levis’ Immortal Poem  by Suzanne Lummis

Photo Caption: A picture of Larry Levis giving a lecture, at the Aspen Writers' Conference, 1980.
“He was jealous of my Hawaiian shirts, so he went out and bought one of his own.”
– Kurt Brown

FB post, Ira Sadoff: “Larry wasn't awake for this one either. But he could say wise things about poetry in his sleep.”

Suzanne Lummis writes - The creation tales and lore of some Native American tribes, some Northwest Coast people certainly, and the Yuchi of the Southeast, posits the existence of three worlds. The Western tradition, in most of its expressions, holds to the idea of two— “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”  Of course, exceptions can be found, especially in poetry. 
I like to ask my students, the advanced classes, where Larry Levis’ “Fish” is best appreciated—for these poets have probably already attempted what he makes look so very easy—“Where does this poem take place, in the world below, the world above, or this one?”
There is a silence while the group considers the poem from this new point of view then someone will speak up. All three.    
Indeed, it moves fluidly, seamlessly, through and around the lower, middle and upper realms, each a chilly landscape glittering with a few sharp details that seem cut with an X-Acto Knife. 

---

Read the essay here

from the Guest Editor of Issue XXXX​

Suzanne Lummis

In my conversation with Robert Polito and Boris Dralyuk I insisted that for a poem to be Noir it must involve, or at least allude to, a crime. Not everyone agreed.  In fact, only I agreed—I agreed with myself.
I say I insisted, then… Do I contradict myself?  Very well then, I… 
Not all poems in the Noir themed section touch on crime, for example, Marsha de la O’s snapping little ‘what I should’ve said’ piece, although…  Come to think of it, it does involve conflict with the law via an officer of the law. And who knows what inspired the officer’s contempt? Maybe the poet had made a bungled attempt to steal the Koh-i-Noor diamond. 

Read more

---

Book reviews

Review of Berceuse Parish by Burnside Soleil by Lee Rossi

Essays

The Protean Beauty of Gustavo Hernandez’s Bachelor by Alexsis Umlas

Poet in Focus​

Last known photo of Federico García Lorca, with Manuela Arniches on the terrace of Café Chiki-Kutz, Paseo de Recoletos 29, Madrid, July 1936

---

editors' Recommendations
​

International Poetry of the First World War Ed. Constance Ruzich (Bloomsbury, 2020) reviewed by Kathryn White

Coins in Rivers by Rochelle Potkar, Hachette, 2024 reviewed by Amlanjyoti Goswami

Witnesses of Remembrance by Kunwar Narain (translated by Apurva Narain) (Eka, 2021) reviewed by Mathura

---

​Book review of We Are Not a Museum by Pramila Venkateswaran by Rohit Dey

Wings to Soar High, by Amir Or reviewed by Seth Michelson

War Music – An Account of Homer’s Iliad, Faber and Faber, edited by Christopher Reid

The Singer of Alleppey by Pramila Venkateswaran, Shanti Arts LLC (2018)

Vertical Divider

Featured Poets

Lynne Thompson served as Poet Laureate for the City of Los Angeles (2021-2022) and received a Laureate Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets. She is the author of four collections of poetry, most recently Blue on a Blue Palette (BOA Editions, 2024). Thompson serves on the Boards of Scripps College, the Poetry Foundation, Los Angeles Review of Books, and is the current President of Cave Canem. Her recent work can be found or is forthcoming in the Georgia Review, Kenyon Review, and Gulf Coast, among others.

Mariano Zaro is the author of seven books of poetry, most recently The Weight of Sound (Walton Well Press), Decoding Sparrows (What Books Press) and Padre Tierra (Olifante, Zaragoza, Spain). His translations include Buda en llamas by Tony Barnstone and Cómo escribir una canción de amor by Sholeh Wolpé. His poems have been published in the anthologies Monster Verse (Penguin Random House), Poetry Goes to the Movies (Beyond Baroque Books), The Coiled Serpent (Tía Chucha Press), and in several magazines in Mexico, Spain and the United States.

Amy Gerstler's most recent book of poems is Is this My Final Form (Penguin Random House, April, 2025). Her work has appeared in a variety of magazines and anthologies, including the New Yorker, The Atlantic Magazine and Paris Review. In 2019, she received a Foundation for Contemporary Arts CD Wright Grant. In 2018, she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. In addition to poetry, she writes plays, journalism and art criticism.

---

"A definition of poetry can only determine what poetry should be and not what poetry actually was and is; otherwise the most concise formula would be: Poetry is that which at some time and some place was thus named." 
[Friedrich Von Schlegel (1772-1829), German philosopher. Aphorism 114 in Selected Aphorisms from the Athenaeum (1798), translated by Ernst Behler and Roman Struc, Dialogue on Poetry and Literary Aphorisms, Pennsylvania University Press (1968).] 

---