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The Pedestal Magazine > Archives > Issue 53 > Poetry >Introduction by Terri Brown-Davidson

                         Introduction by Terri Brown-Davidson

           My goal as I began my editorial journey with The Pedestal Magazine was simple, clear, and insanely ambitious: I wanted to discover and publish the twelve best unpublished poems “out there.” Of course, anytime the word “best” is bandied about, people—rightly, I suppose—tend to become nervous. To use the term “the best” implies on one’s part a sort of aesthetic absolutism. But I believe that any artist, any poet, who’s intrepid enough to create subscribes to such an absolutism, public or private, elitist or not. We all have our ways of defining the best, and I’m no exception. I viewed my guest editorship at The Pedestal Magazine—a rare opportunity and a lovely privilege bestowed by the multitalented John Amen—as an opportunity to find and share with others what I regard as twelve stellar pieces, genuine jewels that shine with an authentic luster among the many paste-and-plastic baubles we encounter every day. 

          So, among this assortment of “the best,” or this assortment of “my best,” you’ll find the lovely lyrical fierceness of Lisa Cihlar’s poems, “MRI” and “What’s the Matter with You?” Cihlar is a poet of intense and unsparing drama, her gaze trained with a raptor’s fierceness upon crucial details, brilliant and wise and uncomfortably unflinching. Although Cihlar is new to the poetic world, she’s been practicing and refining her art for years, and her future strikes me as, frankly, glorious. I think you’ll agree.

          Also fierce, rage-suffused, and undeniably brilliant is Judith Skillman, who offers us the horrors of her dark little vision, “Infanticide.” Skillman’s was the first truly brilliant poem I ran across on my poetic journey, and I was in awe of the sheer skill of her line breaks, movement, and control, as evidenced in this fantastic poem. Much like Heather McHugh, Skillman is a “poet’s poet,” and to read her work makes me rejoice, as poet, in the possibilities of the art itself.

          You’ll also find the wildly lush and endlessly graceful cataloguing of Eleanor Wilner in her two poems presented here, “Of Such Stuff As Dreams Are Made On” and “Watch This Poem Disappear.” Wilner’s fantastically long lines present an exercise in drama, elegance, wisdom, and perception. Wilner is already justly celebrated as one of our finest poets, and these poems only add to the luster of her accomplishment.

          In Dorianne Laux’s “Ode to Gray,” another celebrated poet among us considers the beautifully muted possibilities of the understated and unjustly ignored color in our collective palette. Dorianne Laux elevates the typical catalogue poem to new heights in this splendid effort, and her work is always a joy to read. Also wonderful, almost rapturous, is Doug Ramspeck’s catalogue poem, “The Names of Things,” and I loved discovering this beautiful and moving poem among Pedestal’s flood of submissions.

          Colin Ward and Lance Levens, in their respective poems, “Gods Lake Narrows Pilgrimage” and “Warriors,” demonstrate that the formalism that they practice—rigorous, heightened, language-conscious—can result in exquisitely crafted poems. These gentlemen are indeed playing tennis with a net, but the game they engage in is smart, compelling, and demands the most extraordinary level of skill. Frost would be proud.

          After the formalism of Ward and Levens, we experience the joy of reading three free-verse poets in exquisite control of their craft and subject matter. Carol Peters, Jon Davies, and Janice Soderling explore the realm of the fantastic with pathos, sharp and terrific imagery, and an endearing level of skill. The writing in Peters’ poem is so gorgeous and musical that I found myself wondering, as I read “The Next Otter,” why this new and lyrically gifted voice isn’t already more celebrated. And Jon Davies’ “The Timid Ones,” a dark exploration into the pathology of the lost and “pathetic” among us, literally kept me awake at night, various lines of the poem coming back and back. Equally compelling is the humor, wryness, and sly and surprising narrative conclusions reached in Janice Soderling’s “The Fox.” Soderling is a poet who can literally find the wisdom and humor in excrement, and her tiny gem of a poem reminded me of Odd Nerdrum’s painting “Twilight,” similarly earthy, similarly grounded in nature, slyly scatological—both poem and painting are rare and whimsical gifts!

          I loved discovering these poems, and I love the privilege of being able to offer them to you, the wider readership of The Pedestal Magazine. I hope you’ll savor them, as I did. I hope you’ll remember them.

                                        —Terri Brown-Davidson
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