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The understated photograph on the cover of this book is an image of a ceramic basin -
its patina, its offerings of color and form, its invitation for us to look at what surrounds
us. Who would have thought the simple pickings of a garden could be so beautiful? A
scatter of daffodils, their colors softened by their new context. An assortment of leaves and
grasses, some still joined to their roots.
This issue of the Pitkin Review is like that. It’s a diverse collection of offerings, held
out for your enjoyment and attention. Each piece is unique, with its own distinct glaze. What
the contributors share is their daring, their wonderful readiness to show the smudged traces
of dirt or anything else that sets creative work on its edge.
Pitkin Review, Fall 2007 is made by students in Goddard College’s MFA/Creative
Writing program – a minimum residency program with two campuses, one on the east coast
of the United States, the other on the west. It contains the work of forty-one writers and
photographers, agonizingly selected from a field of strong submissions. Last issue there
were nine nonfiction submissions; this issue we had twenty-nine. In poetry and fiction the
volume of submissions more than doubled. The nineteen poems you will find here were
culled from a field of ninety-nine.
I want to say thank you to the volunteer staff who generously gave so many hours of
their time. Scattered across North America and across the globe, we couldn’t come together
for a celebratory pizza party. What a shame. It would have been spectacular pizza – gourmet,
organic, with the best ingredients. Thanks to Dawnelle Cassidy, for her marvellous job on
the layout. Thanks to our two associate editors, Kathryn Good-Schiff and Roxana Arama,
for their skill, their calm efficiency and astute observation. Thanks to six fine lead editors
for their unfailing commitment to their writers and photographers, their attentive guidance.
Thanks to Katharine English and Mariana Damon, our esteemed copy editors, for their
tireless “eagle eyes” and expert knowledge of semicolons. A special thanks is owed to our
genre editors – the readers – who did not blink when they received an unexpectedly massive
pile of submissions to read. The editor in chief, associate editors and lead editors were
strongly guided by the genre editors’ careful choices – choices made without the readers
knowing whose work they were judging, because the names had been removed.
Submitting work to a magazine – any magazine – is a huge act of trust. I want to
thank everyone who submitted. We have worked hard to make this the beautiful book you
deserve. On a personal note, I want to say what a privilege it has been to be the editor in
chief for this issue. A warm welcome to Rachel Román, the editor in chief of the Spring
2008 issue of the Pitkin Review. May you enjoy the challenge as much as I did, Rachel.
Now, please turn the page. Look inside at the crafting of the poems, the composition
of the photographs, the selection of detail in the hands of a storyteller, a playwright, an
essayist. Consider the writer who asks an uneasy question, or glimpses the future, or
challenges us with an image. These are carefully gathered leaves from Fall, 2007. Already,
we are busy creating something new, something riskier than before, because that is who we
are; that is what we do.
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