Dear Word Salad Faithful –

Today, I received the September issue of the monthly West End Poetry Newsletter; for those unaware of West End, this e-zine delivers poetry, poetry news and literary events right to your inbox. So, if you have an email address, I urge you to subscribe, at least in the name of poetry.

I believe Jean Jones needs no introduction. Jean has contributed two poems to this edition: Darkness is the One and Sign of the Times. The latter I think couldn’t be more relevant in terms of title and subject matter. What intrigues me is the execution, the strategy of how the concept was conceived through an email correspondence between Jean and Bruce Whealton. This is surely a fine example of experimental poetry, orchestrated by such a seasoned poet. I urge you to check it out.

http://www.westendpoetsweekend.com/newsletter.htm

This poem for its experimental gusto and others beforehand is not to be taken lightly: it opens dimensions of creative thinking. I can’t help but consult Billy Collins’ sagely pearls of wisdom in ‘Introduction to Poetry’, that a poem should be held to the light, or should there be any lingering doubts, press an ear to a poem to hear its pulse. To echo one of his most emphatic points, ‘drop a mouse into a poem and watch him probe his way out’. It is here I think Jean not only found and absconded with the cheese, but in fact cooked himself an omelet before leaving the maze.

The point I’m trying to make clear is that poetry should be in its own right, instinctual. Its choice word, its conception, the emotions that drive – all of these are stakeholders to fuel the creative process.

Dear Word Salad Faithful –

Welcome to the summer edition of Word Salad Poetry Magazine, this is the first issue of our eighteenth volume, which means that we have now entered our eighteenth year of publication.

Why not beat the heat with the poetry beat? Here’s what you can anticipate from this issue: Gary Beck invites us once again to indulge into a realm of reveries with three new poems, Stuttgart Recollected, For Man Who Dies and Instant Attraction; Scott Urban takes us for a test drive down memory lane with two new musings, No Engine Break and HALYBURTON PARK, Saturday Morning.  In Karen Finnigan’s new poem Slow Drip, she discovers inventive ways of breaking her voice from the confinements of solitude; words rebound and skip like stones off the behemoth backside of water … always constant. Always flowing. Richard L. Provencher paints a vivid portrait of President Obama in Before Obama that purges honesty in a cathartic way. Finally, Michael Brownstein introduces A World of Roses and Complain where he tosses one-liners your way like the tossing of water balloons: lines dribble across the page, new vistas of imagery burst at the seams upon impact, leaving the drenched reader dumbfounded.

That is only a mere taste of what is in store … for the main course, click on the Current Issue tab on the Home Page to read on.

Under normal circumstances we are a quarterly magazine; however as of late Word Salad has been working on borrowed time, due to many technical difficulties. We apologize for not being as prompt as usual.

We would’ve liked to publish more poems for this issue; however, fear not! Those who have submitted toward the summer edition and are not appearing in this issue, we are considering your work for the fall issue of Word Salad, which would be Volume XVIII, No. II.

Plus, from now until August 31, 2012, we are accepting new submissions.