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Conduit – Spring 2004

Number 14

Spring 2004

Weston Cutter

While it’s tempting for me to enjoy Conduit because we are of the same city, or because I think Conduit does many things tremendously well—among them risk annihilation, use words instead of page numbers, gather incredible poetry—the clearest reason in this latest issue to enjoy it is because of the poem, “My One Paneled Wall,” by Crystal Curry, though ‘enjoy’ is far and away far too weak a verb for this startlingly sharp and perfect poem, and she should, like many other poets within (C.G. Waldrep, Olena Kalytiak Davis, etc.), have whatever choice of beverage she prefers purchased for her.

While it’s tempting for me to enjoy Conduit because we are of the same city, or because I think Conduit does many things tremendously well—among them risk annihilation, use words instead of page numbers, gather incredible poetry—the clearest reason in this latest issue to enjoy it is because of the poem, “My One Paneled Wall,” by Crystal Curry, though ‘enjoy’ is far and away far too weak a verb for this startlingly sharp and perfect poem, and she should, like many other poets within (C.G. Waldrep, Olena Kalytiak Davis, etc.), have whatever choice of beverage she prefers purchased for her. Conduit is nothing if not daring, and their motto of risking annihilation is not at all some clever ruse for your hard-earned literary magazine dollar. (For the record, as well: Sarah Manguso, an internet high five to you for both poems.) These poems are reckless, not necessarily pushing language so much as alchemizing it, restructuring the pyrite of life and love and longing into something glintier and more mercurial.

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