november 2005

Two poems   Justin Vicari
Sinner, Don't You Weep   Camille Dungy
The Truth is not an Historical Category
Claire Fanger
Untitled   Simon Perchik
Stem and Sweet Smoke   Leslie McGrath
First   Kate Evans
Handhold (for a Zygote)  Andrew Demcak
Jasmine   Carol Frith
Two poems  Sanford Dorbin

Featured Poet    Peter Johnson

Visuals by 
Peter Davis 

from the ether

We're proud to bring you the November 2005 issue of the DMQ Review and the work of many fine poets alongside the evocative images of Seattle artist, Joan Stuart Ross. While our intent is not to illustrate poems nor assign captions to artwork, it is intriguing how presenting these pieces together encourages a dialog between them. A surprising resonance forms. We hope you enjoy “listening in” to this unique collection.

Our second excerpt from Poet’s Bookshelf: Contemporary Poets On Books That Shaped Their Art, edited by Peter Davis (2005, The Barnwood Press), features poet Peter Johnson’s thoughts on essential reading. We’re pleased with your responses to this new offering and look forward to future installations.

Johnson has contributed several new prose poems to this issue including three from his latest book, Eduardo & “I”, forthcoming in 2006 from White Pine Press. Eduardo & “I” is made up of two sequences of 24 poems each. Johnson explains.

In the first, we find a character named Eduardo who is part alter ego and part cultural artifact and who embodies our culture's narcissistic qualities, which momentarily vanished after 9/11.  In the second section, an unnamed narrator, the “I,” who has a wife, an infant, and a teenage son tries to make sense out of a post 9/11 world.  It really is very much a 9/11 book without being self-consciously so. It's also very darkly humorous.

The staff here at the DMQ Review wishes you happy reading and a satisfying new year in this most strange, post 9/11 world. Do what you can; we will too.

Regards,

Sally Ashton
Editor in Chief