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Rattle – Summer 2006

Volume 12 Number 1

Summer 2006

Biannual

Sima Rabinowitz

This issue of Rattle includes forty-two poems in a “Tribute Section” celebrating the magazine’s 25th anniversary. Reading these poems, and William O’Daly’s brilliant essay, “Speaking Freely: Poetry, Torture, and Truth,” I was sorry I’d ever missed a single issue of the journal. (The essay is the second half of a two-part essay, which may be found in its entirety at www.poetsagainstthewar.org.) The tribute is introduced by editor Stellasue Lee, who describes her interaction with Rattle poets over the years and includes their thoughts on the poetic process (many of which are also included in the “Contributors’ Notes”).

This issue of Rattle includes forty-two poems in a “Tribute Section” celebrating the magazine’s 25th anniversary. Reading these poems, and William O’Daly’s brilliant essay, “Speaking Freely: Poetry, Torture, and Truth,” I was sorry I’d ever missed a single issue of the journal. (The essay is the second half of a two-part essay, which may be found in its entirety at www.poetsagainstthewar.org.) The tribute is introduced by editor Stellasue Lee, who describes her interaction with Rattle poets over the years and includes their thoughts on the poetic process (many of which are also included in the “Contributors’ Notes”). It’s a moving essay, made all the more so at the conclusion with Lee’s revelation as the result of her forty-year-old stepdaughter’s death in an accident just two weeks earlier—”that’s why we write, not to be alone.” And you won’t be alone — you’ll be in the great company of Salah al Hamdani, whose beautiful poem “Baghdad Mon Amour” (translated by Molly Deschenes), couldn’t be more powerful or more timely (“You cannot tremble at the threshold of these ruins of days”); and Tony Goeggeler, whose poem “1969” is also, and sadly so, utterly timely (“Two white gloved Marines / rang the bell, stood / on our stoop….My father / started Johnny’s car / revved the engine / until every tool / hanging in the garage / shook.”); and Lola Haskins, whose poem, “Halfway Down the Block, Your Father,” is typical of her work, deceptively simple and gut wrenching; and Philip Levine, and Li-Young Lee, and Yusef Komunyakaa, and the late Julie Goldman, whose poem “End of Season,” is a testament to the work that ordinary language can do (“The folded shirt goes with the rest, / face up in a storage box that smells of cedar, like a casket.”). It’s hard to believe, but the tribute constitutes less than half the issue, which also includes 47 new poems, seven reviews, and interviews with Hayden Carruth and Mark Jarman, whose poems “The Northern Lights” and “Almost” appear in this issue. Judging by the new poems, I’d say Rattle’s next twenty-five years will be as strong as the last. [www.rattle.com] –Sima Rabinowitz

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