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I have been thinking about circles of conversation: there are a variety of kinds. Some conversations start one place, move with a surprising curve, and unexpectedly orbit back exactly to the place they began. Or, there are those circles of conversation that link together many separate conversations. For instance, my poet friend and I have been separately musing on the rhythms and movements of Emily Dickenson's work and when we converse we discover we've been following similar lines of thoughts for days on end without knowing it.
Perhaps it is because my days currently follow a very predictable circuit that is regulated by a bus route, which is peopled with the same unique strangers every day. We all have our habits that give our lives (and the lives of those around us, even strangers) a structure, a refrain, one that sometimes barely varies for long stretches of time. Regardless, I've been noticing circles-in movements, in habits, in thoughts and words.
All these circles seem like the imprints of rain on lake water: disparate but blending, ephemeral yet vividly concrete. I see circles of thought articulated in this new issue of Blood Orange Review, too. Wendy C. Ortiz's poem, "Some Scars," begins with the persona circling a lake and "spinning loose." David W. Landrum's fine pair of poems follows the circularity of reincarnation. Perhaps that is why the artwork of Elizabeth Zaikowski seems particularly fitting for this issue. Many of her pieces explore mandalas-repetitive, outward spiraling patterns in a deeply meditative way.
Circling can, of course, feel uncomfortable, repetitive, or boring. But it can also feel like the spinning sensation left over after one turns and turns until dizzy and then falls back against the earth to ride out the feeling. Dizzy or not, the circling in this issue is intriguing and pleasurable.
Heather K. Hummel, Editor
Blood Orange Review
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The submissions for this new issue had to work overtime to keep my attention. If the voices didn't grab me, if I didn't feel tugged by the current of narrative, my mind wandered. I am not the ideal literary reader, but I do think I represent an average literary reader: over-scheduled, well-meaning but ultimately capricious and prone to distraction.
So this newest volume presents the writing that held my gaze despite the carnival of my personal life flickering in the periphery. These are imperfect speakers talking to an imperfect audience. What I like most about this recent collection is that it feels populated by real voices-talking to friends, to me the reader, to themselves. These writers make it hard not to listen.
Some poems are about identity and transformation, as in "The Last Hangman's Knot" by Brent Fisk and the reincarnation poems by David W. Landrum. Some writing in this issue is more of a treatise on writing: Randall Brown's "The Guy That Roller-Skates on Stage." Others are trying to work out a problem through language, such as Don Mager's "Helping Verbs Work: Solutions to an Old Equation #35 and #36" and Nicholas Ripatrazone's "On Appearance." All manage to keep me reading with their humor, insight, and intensity.
I'm so thankful for the way language counters the fog of distraction and brings me back to my life through the lives and words of other, "the clear expression of mixed feelings," as Auden said. Read this volume when you can steal the time. I know there's so much dividing your attention into smaller and smaller slices of the mental pie-but help yourself to some good reading here. You deserve it.
Stephanie Lenox, Editor
Blood Orange Review
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