Editors’ Introductions
Editors’ Introductions Pedestal’s editorial process is always an exhilarating and expansive experience. To see an issue come together – poem by poem, each with its unique voice, music, and intent – is gratifying and still, after all these years, brings me a rush of energy, a feeling of being on some kind of creative frontline. […]
John Amen – My Favorite Albums of 2020
Nine months of lockdown or semi-lockdown. COVID-19 ravaging the globe. Isolation, disconnection, economic crises. The months leading up to the election. The election. Post-election. 2020 was filled with unique challenges as well as magnified versions of the challenges we already faced. Through it all, art offered and offers a complement, a metaphor, solace, attunement, guidance, […]
Introductions to Pedestal 85
Introductions to Pedestal 85 Selecting poems with four editors is an amazing process. Working as a team helps each of us look deeper into the intent of a poem, into its rhythm and impact. So, readers, I’m going to issue a similar challenge to you. Find the poem where a woman is buried in books […]
Introduction to Pedestal 84
Introduction to Pedestal 84 Editing Pedestal is an aesthetic adventure, particularly when several editors are reading, conferring, agreeing, disagreeing, leaping, and, in some cases, inching toward consensus regarding specific poems and an issue in its entirety. Re Pedestal 84: the three of us received and read over 6500 poems, reaching enthusiastic agreement on the fourteen […]
Introduction by John Amen
Introduction by John Amen One of my first & most enduring literary impressions re the catastrophic impact of war, on the individual psyche & society at large, is the example of Septimus in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway. While S occupies relatively little text compared to narratives related to Clarissa Dalloway & her looming party, he […]
