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Acumen 95 September 2019

Acumen 95, September 2019

Editorial 

Poems:  Jane Angué, Pallavi Deepchand, Ruth Taaffe, Barry Wilson, Tim Cunningham,
Hugh McMillan, Rebecca Gethin, K.V. Skene, Colin Pink.

Interview –Caroline Smith.
Poems:  Caroline Smith, Rae Howells, Graham Mort, Paul Surman, Amanda Rackstraw,
George Freek, Adam Horovitz, Keith McFarlane, Mike Barlow, Dorrie Johnson,
Nicholas McGaughey, Chris Waters, Daniel Fraser, Seán Street, Shanta Acharya,
Kevin Eagles.

Poems in Translation:  Domingos Carvalo Da Silva (trans. Richard O’Connell),
Pernette du Guillet (trans. (Nico Mann), Hugo Salus & Rainer Maria Rilke
(trans. Christine McNeill).

Poems:  Jacob Lotinga, Virginia Betts, Philip Rush, David Callin, Lyn Moir, Edward Lee.

Responses

Poems:  James Deahl, G.E. Stevens, Merryn Williams, Sally Sandler, Patricia Lafferty,
Margaret P. Houston.

The Real Lara – Roger Harvey.

Poems:  Michael Henry, Peter Dale, Liva Jaunciema, Steve Denehan, Dorothy Baird.

Poetry in a Pickle – Paul Gittins.

Poems:  David Perman, Matthew Page, Peter Ebsworth, Linda Saunders, Joy Winkler,
Christine Griffin, Cliff Forshaw, A.D. Harvey, Clive Donovan, R.V. Bailey.

Reviews:  Keith McFarlane, Edmund Prestwich, Nick Browne, Roland John,
Glyn Pursglove, Leah Fritz, Fred Beake.

Poetry Comment.

 

EDITORIAL

One of the good things about editing Acumen in the past few years has
been the amount of poetry I get from other countries. This has been
amazing, not only in content but in the friendships that the internet has
forged. I am ‘friends’ with poets from Beirut, Christchurch, China, India,
Taiwan, Rwanda and, of course, Europe, the United States and Canada.
On a personal level I get to know snippets of the poets’ lives from their
covering letters; snippets like the birth of a child, the death of a loved
parent, their family. This makes them poets and people, not just cyphers.
And then there is the poetry; often different in emphasis with stress on
the spiritual or local politics, concerns which cross boundaries like love
and loss, beauty and ugliness in the world, people’s jobs, their countries,
their views of the world. Unfamiliar names suddenly become familiar and
I look forward to opening their emails and catching up since their last
submissions. It has been an honour and a priviledge to get to know them.
Unfortunately, it sometimes happens that I cannot use their work,
heartfelt as it often is. The poet struggles to express him or herself in
English, not just with small errors which I can silently correct if I like the
poem, but with fundamental grammatical errors. To put these right would
be to take away the ownership of the poem, to deprive the poet of their
original thought and emotion. Sometimes they are struggling to say
important ideas from their beliefs, their mythology, their own
observations of the world. But it doesn’t come over and I have to turn
down the poem. It can be heartening in these circumstances when they
say they are going to be published in their own language so their thoughts
and ideas have an outlet.
This is why I often publish poetry in translation. Poets from early
Greek and Roman times up to the present day have expressed some of
the most beautiful and fundemental ideas in their own language and
thanks to skilled translators we can now read them in English. They
enrich our language and culture and for this we should all be grateful.!

Back Issues

  • Acumen 102 – January 2022

    Acumen 102 – January 2022

  • Acumen 101 – September 2021

    Acumen 101 – September 2021

  • Acumen 100 – May 2021

    Acumen 100 – May 2021

  • Acumen 98 – Sept 20

    Acumen 98 – Sept 20

  • Acumen 97 – May 2020

    Acumen 97 – May 2020

  • Acumen 96 – Jan 2020

    Acumen 96 – Jan 2020

  • Acumen 95    September 2019

    Acumen 95 September 2019

  • Acumen 94 – May 2019

    Acumen 94 – May 2019

  • Acumen 93 January 2019

    Acumen 93 January 2019

  • Acumen 92 – September 2018

    Acumen 92 – September 2018

  • Acumen 91 – May 2018

    Acumen 91 – May 2018

  • Acumen 90 – January 2018

    Acumen 90 – January 2018

  • Acumen 89   September 2017

    Acumen 89 September 2017

  • Acumen 88 – May 2017

    Acumen 88 – May 2017

  • Acumen 87   January 2017

    Acumen 87 January 2017

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