September 2007 Front Page

this issue Interviews the PoetryCircle with John Yamrus ... page 2 Reviews on various poets and books including Milner Place ... page 3 Articles featuring Dystonian Space Babies by Dave Besseling ... page 4 featured book SHOOT THE MOON John Yamrus United States John Yamrus has been a fixture in American poetry for four decades. Since 1970 he has published 2 novels, 17 volumes of poetry and more than 900 poems in magazines around the world. Selections of his poetry have been translated into several languages including Spanish, Swedish, Italian, Japanese and (most recently) Romanian. His newest book is SHOOT THE MOON and is available online now at amazon.com. in the spotlight        Ross McCague        Canada Our featured poem was written by Ross McCaque: I am a teacher of English as a Second Language for Academic Purposes at Seneca College in Toronto. I have taught ESL for 15 years and have a B.Ed. and M.Ed in that field. My first degree was in English Literature. Since I was in my twenties, I have read widely and taken a keen interest in modern poetry. My work is based on a close reading of the English Romantics, the French Symbolists, and the 'Moderns' in all the European languages. I have relied on translations for much of this study, but I benefitted from reading, as a young man, such poets as Vallejo, Neruda, Rilke, Trakl, Cavafy, Mandelstam and Lorca. Much was being done in other languages that is beyond what English poetry attempted at the time. I also have a keen interest in American landscape painting from the Civil War era. It is known as Luminism. The work features the study of light on still, elongated wilderness environments and seaside settings. 'Light' was, in fact, my first word. Finally, I am quite affected by the career and work of Bob Dylan. I began participating on Ukauthors and Creative Poems online about three years ago. I have posted work on both sites from time to time. I have never attempted to publish. I like having a small number of committed readers since my work is difficult and not to everyone's taste. Persons with peculiar Romantic ideals tend to enjoy it. --Ross McCague selected poem Little Girl Lost (A sketch from memory) Sheaves of corn under an infinite sky: Desire forms that endless way for you. The isolated circumstance of dating and dance seems so simple and so perfect too, Not everything can be singled out. You wear a gold earring as a reminder what it is to be a startling woman in a plain-spoken world. Up late, past the bedtime of the eastern kings: The stability of a rectangular parlor, Marriage should hold, sanity, and even love like a quaint painting in a dusted frame. What reminder there is of love is found in spring then birth and rebirth runs the farm as much as men. The county fair out on a squared field designated for pies, pigs, pigtails and the arcing of the sun. The engines throttle so but not those of state: Did you ever swing out beneath the trees, Lifting your spirit high and higher? Apron tossed aside, dress askew, Mimicking the motion of the overruling sun. You must have seen children, A man dreaming in a cocoon, The future about to spread its overarching wings. We still need to swing, lie out under those unfenced skies to know what is, what isn’t, and what just might be. Far above the rectangular states drawing out time and lengthening the neatly polished graves, I see an urban girl, head turned to one side, A single earring pierced, The chiaroscuro of a Vermeer: The light from the window is such, She might well be reading the finished script. by Ross McCague