A Note From The Editors

by Brett Alan Sanders

My good friend Alejandro Bekes, poet, essayist, and teacher from the Argentine town of Concordia, wrote an essay which I translated as “Three Views” and published in the Summer 2005 issue of NWR. In it he relates a story about Goethe, which he finds in a book by Jorge Larrosa on the experience of reading. I quote now from my translation of Alejandro’s text:

“The year was 1808; Napoleon’s armies controlled Europe; ‘the hateful French troops’ fell back into their traditional habit of trampling on German soil and German patriotism. A group of intellectuals goes, then, to consult with Goethe. They want to publish a collection of the best German poetry, for a popular audience and directed at the greatest possible number of readers. They want to encourage the disheartened spirit of German brotherhood. And they ask his counsel. Goethe reflects and answers, as his only suggestion, that in that anthology they should include German translations of foreign poetry.

“Larrosa comments: ‘With that gesture, invested with a certain solemnity, Goethe expressed what German literature owed to foreign literature and (this being more important and perhaps more enigmatic) that those translations also formed an important part of German literature.'

“This is undoubtedly true, but it may not touch the core of the problem. Goethe shows himself as a man who is not corrupted by contingency, and who is capable of looking above, very much above it, to what will endure, to what really matters. And what really matters is to know that the spirit of a nation is not strengthened by enclosing it within itself, nor by coating itself in the armor of the deeply rooted habits of its peculiarity, however dear and precious this may seem to us. A nation exists when from it one can see the universe, when from the substance of its soil and its traditions someone can express the whole nature of man.”

I have been remembering these words of Alejandro’s, and taking them much to heart, since my first email conversations earlier this year with Charles Fishman, NWR’s very capable and gifted poetry editor. And it occurs to me now that they well reflect the magazine’s historical mission (established and carried out quite ably over much of the past ten years by founding editors Lucia Greer and Tim Healy) to “translate” to the largest possible audience, from a variety of perspectives and in the richest spectrum of voices, the vast and ecumenical human experience as captured by writers and artists both established and emerging – in particular those whose work does not always fit within the sometimes rigid categories of the marketplace. My first contribution to Lucia’s and Tim’s little-magazine-that-could, for example, a lyrical little essay contemplating the largely untried possibilities for peace in the Middle East, was immediately picked up for the Spring 2004 issue after better than a year of making the rounds to other publications. Most notably, it was passed around at The New Yorker, where (writing on October 1, 2002) Willing Davidson, who had been handed a copy by David Remnick, commented that he had “read it with pleasure, and found it quite interesting,” although unfortunately they could find no place for it in the magazine. While clearly thrilled with the implied validation of Davidson’s personalized response, I was naturally more delighted with Tim’s email announcing that there was, after all, a place at his and Lucia’s welcoming and eclectic table.

At the time I could scarcely have imagined that four years later – with my son Jonathan who is also an able wordsmith but, more importantly at this juncture, an incomparably more competent layout-and-design person than his technologically clumsy father – I would be stepping into Tim’s position at the head of this wonderful magazine, as he had done earlier for Lucia when she needed to take a step back. Actually it is Jonathan, as editor-in-chief, who Tim invited to take his place, and bring NWR into the future with an updated look and design. That invitation was inspired last fall by a glimpse at the new webpage that Jonathan had created for me, and came as a most flattering surprise to him. It was I, then, enticed by the prospect of working with my son on such a consequential project, who proposed working alongside him in the capacity of managing editor. If Tim objected at all to my intrusion, he was kind enough not to let on to it. Had it not been for my utter confidence in Jonathan’s ability to take on the task, it is doubtful that I would have mustered the courage to volunteer.

I had first approached Charles Fishman, anyway, with the idea of featuring the prose poetry of another Argentine writer, María Rosa Lojo, whose originals appear alongside my translations in Awaiting the Green Morning, just released by Host Publications. That feature is planned for the summer, while Laurel Johnson’s review of the book appears already in the present issue, online. How fortuitous, in any case, that my interest in literary translation should coincide so neatly with Charles’s own hopes for NWR, which are exemplified in this issue by his invitation of Nicholas Birns’s guest review of a bilingual edition of the work of Bangladeshi-American poet Hassanal Abdullah.

Imagine my delight, also, upon learning that this issue would include Pulitzer Prize-nominated Rebecca Seiferle as both featured poet and translator: her renderings of a trio of poems by the Spaniard Federico García Lorca are by themselves reason to dive into this premiere edition of the redesigned NWR! Her original poetry, too, is as always stunning, touched by the grace of literatures and worldviews which are not strictly ours. And her work is scarcely alone, among the present offerings, in conveying such a precisely grounded yet universal vision: consider as well the internationalist poetic perspectives of Jina Ortiz, Ron Singer, and Judith Werner, to name just three of this issue’s stellar poets.

Consider, likewise, featured writer Susan Swetnam’s remarkable paired essays which take us both to modern-day Italy and (in a dizzying fusion of narrative and psychic realms of possibility) as far away as ancient India. Consider the exerpt from Hugh Fox’s charming memoir (which curiously has yet to be picked up by a publisher!) of growing up before the second world war amidst a confusion of Irish Catholics and Jewish immigrants in Chicago, an old world conjured to new life by the magician’s trick of pure voice. NWR’s contributing editor Michael Corrigan takes us also, in essay and in fiction, to such exotic extremes as Hemingway’s Spain and post-Stroessner Paraguay: his featured story “Paraguay Wedding” is on one level an exquisitely imagined cautionary tale about the potential dangers of foreign travel; yet, at its most profound and basic level, it strikes me as simply these characters’ particular struggle with love and loss, played out on a landscape that allows a more foreshortened and multivalent perspective.

This issue is particularly rich in fiction offerings, and I am especially pleased that among the strongest examples are the work of previously unpublished (or at least slightly published) young writers like Sean Orlosky, T. Crepeau, and Penelope Weiss, each of whose stories are deeply affecting and stylistically unique, suggestive of their influences but alive with fresh vision and personality. NWR contributing editor Lynn Strongin also sends us a wonderful story, poignant yet wholly unsentimental, about a child’s struggle with polio (Orlosky, in one of two selections in this issue, treats the subject of AIDS with a similar – and rare! – mastery). Of particular merit, too, is Dell F. Pendergrast’s quick-paced and intelligent “Under the Family Tree,” a combination of mystery and suspense infused with a varied life experience and a deceptively placid Midwestern setting.

I am also especially pleased to have Juan Carlos Reyes on board with his quite innovative “A Candle’s Tale,” which is part of a longer work-in-progress, a portion of which appeared recently at www.tertuliamagazine.com. Thanks to Rosa Martha Villarreal, my editor at Tertulia (where I am a contributing writer and occasional blogger) for sending Reyes our way – and to him for agreeing (with humble awareness of the tentativeness of any of our most earnest drafts) to address, in the revised version which appears here, some of our editors’ slight concerns.

Another thing: the range of what Jonathan and I are interested in publishing is, above all, eclectic, and might embrace (given Jonathan’s particular background in music reviewing) further explorations at the borders of literary, visual, and musical arts. Likewise, as is at least implicit in my friend Alejandro’s reading of Goethe, in that suggestion of literary translation as an antidote to nationalistic literatures of a reductivist and chauvinistic nature, is the need for a critical, civic-minded literature of commentary and analysis. What can we contribute to deepening the public discourse on issues of war and peace, the environment, healthcare, poverty and wealth and failing national infrastructure? In this issue, we feature as commentary my youngest daughter Stephanie’s essay (which began perhaps a year ago as a college research paper) on the tragically and unnecessarily divisive issue of gay marriage. While some of our readers might well be forgiven for not agreeing with her on every point, civility and the basic requirements of reasoned dialogue demand that her arguments be given a respectful hearing.

I invited Stephanie’s essay for the very simple and pragmatic reason that I was aware of its existence and of its merits, and was in a position to help her further shape it. Otherwise, be assured that there is no intention here of preferentially publishing my family members’ work. As for my own, while, by featuring in the upcoming issue the remarkable creativity of María Rosa Lojo, I do necessarily put forth my translations, I will in future endeavor to stay pretty much in the background, asserting myself only so much as to sing the praises of those wonderful writers and poets whose work has found its way to these pages.