 | AMAZE |
The Editor's Page |
| Welcome to the seventh issue of Amaze. With the launch of this issue, we are making some changes in our format and publishing schedule. First, we will be publishing quarterly issues on a set schedule in February, May, August, and November instead on a loose, continuous flow basis. The submission deadline for an issue will be on the 15th of the previous month prior to publication. We will no longer publish a mirror print issue, although promised print issues of past issues will still be published. At the end of the year, we will publish an annual print volume
through Lulu Press, which will include all of the poems from the four quarterly webzine issues for the year. Starting with this issue, Amaze will no longer pay in contributor copies, but will pay $1 a poem, preferably through PayPal. I hope that you will enjoy these changes and continue to make Amaze one of your poetry web-stops, where you will be able to read the best of contemporary cinquain poetry being written today. Included in this issue is a review of May Dazed, the 212 verse collaborative poem written by the members of the CinquainPoets e-mail list. I am including one of my links from this collaborative effort for your reading enjoyment. Deborah Kolodji, editor
Dear Reader, I echo Deborah's welcome to the new format of AMAZE. Since my introduction to the cinquain form several years ago, I find myself returning, again and again to these short and elegant poems. Although I write primarily in free verse, there is something paradoxically freeing in writing to the constraints of form. The cinquain is the form I write to 'clear the palate' or recharge from writer's block. Each time I return, I find something fresh in its structure. I chose to highlight "Hymn" from a group of Deborah's poems because of its spectacular 'turn' between lines three and four. The first three lines place the reader inside, in the context of human grief. Then Deborah carries us outside ourselves and into the expansive world of nature as we follow that birdsong. It both sings our grief and reminds us of the transience of all things. Deborah does not tell us any of this; it is up to the reader to make the connection between the two disparate images. I cannot imagine this piece being as effective in any other format. I hope you enjoy this issue and all the voices singing within it. Lisa Janice Cohen, webmaster
Return to the front page of this issue:
Amaze Vol.
4, No. 1 Winter
2006 |
