Spring at The Cortland Review

Spring brings the following from The Cortland Review editor Ginger Murchison:

Dear Reader,

As we turn the corner into April, The Cortland Review, rather than simply giving you more poetry, wants to honor the relationship of poetry to all the arts, particularly its relationship to its 'sister art' of painting, a link that began with Horace's phrase "ut pictura poesis" in "Ars Poetica"—"as in poetry, so in painting." Aptly, Debra Allbery begins her essay on ekphrasis with a definition:

. . . the word comes from the Greek rhetorical figure, ekphrassein, originally meaning "to speak forth" or "to tell in full"—is generally the term given to a verbal representation of a visual representation.

It's not only inspiration but instruction that poets take from the visual arts, and the poets Allbery mentions that invoke the work of Joseph Cornell are among your favorites, and she builds a case, as well, for how inspirational and instructional their work was to Cornell, enlightening us all as to the far reach of poetry. How can we better honor the art, then, for National Poetry Month?

For your own inspiration and instruction, we include three of Allbery's own ekphrastic poems and ten more from poets giving a nod, not only to the visual arts, but to music, photography, film, and one charming nod at (uh oh) body art.

For more music, enjoy McFadyen-Ketchum's conversation with Ed Pavlic on the subject of Pavlić's latest book: "Winners Have Yet to Be Annonced: A Song for Donny Hathaway," that he describes as

my attempt to articulate, to translate, what I hear in Donny's music and to imagine its origins, its contradictions and the way it fits and doesn't fit into a world . . . beyond the stage.

Carolyne Wright, in "A Change of Maps," pays homage of her own, as David Rigsbee points out in his book review. Her collection is

. . . less a concession to the spell of technique . . . than a kind of knowledge about poetry's secret sway and coterie wisdom and therefore of abiding interest to poetry's serious readers.

For all poetry is on the page, it continues to tap into and feed all of the cultural arts in an ever-widening way, enriching to all of us, a good argument, perhaps, that every month is really poetry month.

Ginger Murchison
Editor

The Cortland Review Spring Issue is here.