editor's note

Farewell

I began working on Disquieting Muses in 1997. There were ten editors and we were wondering what we should name this new venture we were starting. I suggested the name Disquieting Muses after the painting by de Chirico and the poem by Sylvia Plath. The magazine released three issues then folded under the weight of 10 very opinionated editors.

In 1999, I brought it back to life with the help of Karla Rogers and Georgios Kalomiros. From the start, I wanted the magazine to be a combination of art and poetry. I wanted the pages to be simple and for the whole magazine to read like a print magazine. I never wanted it to be about programming glitz and long moments of loading a page. By the May issue of 2000, both Karla Rogers and Georgios Kalomiros stepped down and C. J. Sage came aboard. From the start, C. J. Sage was amazing to work with, and before long, she became the Managing Editor of the magazine. Her editorial insights moved the magazine in a new direction. She has moved on to much bigger and better things (the National Poetry Review), yet her influence on this magazine can never be denied. While she was with the DMQ Review, our reputation did nothing but grow more and more positively. Because of our drastic change in editorial preference we changed the name to the DMQ Review, to help distance the magazine from its early angst-narrative beginnings.

Two years ago we gained D. E. Shephard as an editor and last year we picked up two assistant editors, Marcelle Kube and Kate Evans, who began as interns from San Jose State University. With the exception of myself and Marcelle Kube, all the editorial staff have moved on, been on hiatus, or are in more of an advisory role. I’d like to take this opportunity to acknowledge what a tremendous job Marcelle has done. She reads through a Herculean amount of spam and submissions! We get at least 1000 emails a month.

My heartfelt thanks to the people who have made the DMQ Review run so well over the past years. We enjoyed many kind kudos and nods along the way.  I’d like to say thank you to each and ever person who took the time to write. I’d like to thank all of the people who have linked to this magazine even though we don’t have a links page so can't “trade” links. But mostly I’d like to thank the people who come here repeatedly to read the DMQ Review. I hope that I have served you well.

The thing about a magazine is that it is a labor of love. You have to love everything about it. There is no pay. You occasionally get argumentative or angry letters from poets (sometimes friends) you’ve had to reject. There’s little acknowledgment for the long hours and hard work that goes into making a magazine. But there’s all of the joy of being able to present a good poem and good art. Speaking of good art… I’d like to thank Bob Dornberg, who has been featured here more than any other artist.  And I'd like to thank all of the artisans and writers who have been displayed in the magazine over the years. 

All of that said, I have decided to publish a print magazine, the American Poetry Journal, and leave the DMQ Review. Like the writer of a poem, an editor wants his magazine to live on and have a life of its own. To that end I have asked Sally Ashton, a former contributor to this magazine and an associate editor for the Americas Review to take over as Editor-in-Chief of the DMQ Review. Sally’s own work has appeared in Poet Lore, LIT, Another Chicago Magazine, the DMQ Review, Four Corners, and REED Magazine. She’s been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, she holds an MFA from Bennington College, and she serves on the board for the Center for Literary Arts in San Jose.  Please join me in welcoming her.

I hope that you all will continue to read the DMQ Review and come to rely on Sally.

J.P. Dancing Bear

Editor-in-Chief

november 2003

Two Poems   Lynn Pattison
Glass   Adrianne Kalfopoulou
After Another Funeral   Glenda Cooper
Fear of Floating   Earl Coleman
Folding Metaphors   Justin Evans
Two Poems   Jillian Barnet
Listen, Anna   Jeffrey Alfier
Lotus  Maril Crabtree
  *    Simon Perchik
Utamaro  W. B. Keckler
in the beginning  Michael Estabrook

The Muses Award Winner 2003
S. D. Lishan's  Mr. Collins Uncovered

Visuals by
Bob Dornberg