August, 2007

Editor’s Foreword

One of the most poignant musical moments for me is in Judy Collins’ lovely version of the Steven Sondheim song, “Send in the Clowns.” The voice in the song speaks about the sorrow of

making my entrance again with my usual flare,
Sure of my lines . . . no one is there.

When I decided to start an on-line journal, I wondered if anyone would show up. Despite numerous connections from internet discussion groups, journals where I have published, acquaintances, friends, and colleagues who write poetry, I was afraid I might, like Sondheim’s persona, end up playing to an empty auditorium. After all, this was a new venture and numerous long-established venues for publishing already existed. Would anyone want to contribute to something new and unknown? Would I get high-quality poems? Would anyone respond to the on-line announcements, personal solicitations, and hard-copy fliers I had relied upon to spread the word about this new publication? I was not sure.

The response of poets to Lucid Rhythms was prodigious, at least by my standards, and abundant considering the fact that the publication is brand-new, just now embarking on its maiden voyage as an on-line journal. Many friends have chipped in but I have also received submissions from people outside of my circle of contact. The breadth and variety of poets and poems has been delightful in its scope and rich in its diversity. The first issue contains free verse and metrical verse; poems in familiar fixed forms as well as in fixed forms that are not so widely known; a marvelous translation; serious poems and ones that evoke Milton’s “laughter holding both his sides”; poems that interrogate and explore religious belief and poems that do the same for sexuality (as if religion and sexuality were not related). Every era seems to think that poetry is at its last breath. Every generation abounds in gloomy prophets who predict its demise. Yet poetry kicks along, sometimes sprinting, sometimes limping, but never dropping out of the race. The poetry in this first issue of Lucid Rhythms is ample evidence that poetry is thriving.

And it is the community of poets that is responsible for this vitality and thus is to be complimented and recognized at the onset of this publication. Poetry is poets. Encountering the creativity, intelligence and liveliness of poets has been one of the unanticipated pleasures of this project. Poets are alive, they are vital, they are full of verve, wit, they exude energy, they are funny, deep, profound, light. Shelley said poets area the unacknowledged legislators of the world. Shakespeare, speaking about actors, but certainly including all artists, especially poets (he was one), perhaps put it better when he said of them:

they are the abstract and brief chronicles of the
time: after your death you were better have a bad
epitaph than their ill report while you live.

Hamlet, Act II, Scene 2

My thanks to everyone who contributed. And to everyone who reads. Enough of my words. Enjoy now the words those who are the abstract and brief chronicle of our time, the poets included in this first edition of Lucid Rhythms.

David W. Landrum, Editor