The Maynard
Spring 2020

Rhymes With Orange by Varian Loo

Introduction

Welcome, dear reader, to the Spring 2020 issue of The Maynard.

Before getting into the substance of the editorial process that brought forward this issue and before offering a few teasers of some of the poems featured therein, we invite you to pause with us, and with one of TM’s founding inspirers, Frank O’Hara:

If only I had grey, green, black, brown, yellow eyes; I would stay at home and do something. It’s not that I’m curious. On the contrary, I am bored but it’s my duty to be attentive, I am needed by things as the sky must be above the earth. And lately, so great has their anxiety become, I can spare myself a little sleep.

—from Meditations in an Emergency, 1954

Since we began preparing the Spring issue—submissions closed January 31—much of daily life around the globe has changed. Let us be attentive to the ways we all need and are needed; let us be generous yet sparing with others and ourselves; let us be still in attentive movement. The attention O’Hara describes seems like a pretty good disposition to adopt right now. This could also describe poetic practice, how a poem comes to be. Poetry’s attentiveness delivers and saves us—moment by moment. So, to the issue.

During February and March, our four-strong editorial team read just about 1200 poems from over 230 poets in order to arrive at our magic number of 24 poets and 33 poems in the Spring issue. How did we do it? While reading submissions, we were attentive to skill and craft, earmarking poems that excited and surprised us. After the first round of reading on our own, we had a shortlist of 70 poets. 13 had received nods from two or more editors, bumping them (provisionally) onto the final list. We were about halfway there. The four of us then read all of the poems on the shortlist, sometimes seeing things in a poem that were missed the first time. That’s the wisdom of a team effort: trusting other editors to help us read and see in expanse. At other times, an editor (no one’s naming names!) stood obstinate on must-have pieces. Ah-ha’s tussled with uhn-un’s until 70 became 44, then 27, then 24. Of these, 22 poets offer audio recordings of their work within the issue.

The Spring 2020 issue features Varian Loo’s Rhymes With Orange on its cover; it’s a fitting, mischievous image for these “unhinged” poems and times. In the issue, you’ll find Torben Robertson’s triptych on different ways to shuffle and cut a deck of cards, and Jenny Berkel’s “The Fawn,” evoking Narcissus. Erin Kirsh’s haiku “There Is No Substitute for Good Planning,” explodes with every read; a sonnet by John Barton reflects on inspiration and musical genius. In her contribution to the issue, Lesley Battler sorts through the mania of home décor consumerism, neatly repackaged in poetic form.

You’ll also find Jessica Covil’s subversive poem on love and nachos, and “Communion of Tongues,” by Hege A. Jakobson Lepri, which imagines a polyglot feast where languages are tasted and compared. In Page Hill Starzinger’s poems, enunciation and nomination in language are worked over and tested against the senses. This issue also features poems about women’s experiences, like “she is in the kitchen now,” by Nora Pace, which hauntingly explores the dynamics of power and neglect lurking in domestic violence. Eleanor Kedney’s “Six Gray Moons on a Screen” vignettes the experience of in vitro fertilization. These poems, and more, await your ears and eyes, dear reader.

We hope that you are safe and comfortable at home, and will embrace the gift of the poems of the Spring 2020 issue of The Maynard.

Happy Poetry Month!

Nick Hauck, Jami Macarty, & Ram Randhawa, Editors
w/Colleen Webber, Editorial Intern
Spring 2020 issue | The Maynard