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The Deronda Review |
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The following letter was sent out with the Vol. II, No. 2 of The Deronda Review:
Dear fellow-poets and friends of poetry, The summer ripens as we send this issue, the tiger lilies have begun to bloom, the thistle’s purple heads have turned to grey round Madison; while in Jerusalem, summer’s white heat won’t lift for a while yet. The Three Weeks of the mourning for that Temple destroyed so long ago and ever again in history’s compulsive repetition approach their culmination and their end; and by the time you read this we’ll have chanted Isaiah’s consolations, and be looking toward the commemoration of Creation, the Ten Days of reflection and atonement, after which we shall defy the chill of autumn in our Festival of Booths. Thus does the reckoning that dates itself from that first “Let there be” run oftentimes counter to the mood-mandate of the sun. Amid the weariness of winter’s wane we bade our joy increase. Then, as the spring tuned up its orchestra, trotted out its finery, we were forbidden music, mirth and marriage for seven weeks, and in that time instructed to work on straightening out (using as guide the permutations of the seven Sephirot) whatever crookednesses in our hearts might hold up the general recognition of the Divine intention for our people and for our world: the giving of the Law, which then we celebrated. But not long after that feast, at summer’s very height, comes this three-week reminder of, again, failure, collapse, destruction. All this, we think, is meant to keep us conscious that in our hope for Zion’s restoration and for the Earth’s repair, we have to call upon a power beyond this cyclic world whose pattern of recurrence fails to mask a Downward of inexorable decline, which the Divine renewing spirit alone opposes and turns back, through our return to our true selves from serving time’s delusions. We think the Who-knows-whence of the true poem perhaps is somewhere in the neighborhood of that same place from which renewal springs – although, to seek that place, the poem may go counter to the drift of its own time. With this in mind the seasonable and unseasonable songs collected here were chosen, by the best light that we had. But since Days of Awe, already seen on the horizon, bring with them the duty to own and try to rectify our blunders, let us already try to rectify some blunders in this issue: the omission of Ida Fasel’s “Milton on My Mind” and Sue Komet’s “The End of Links in the Chain” – you’ll find them on the back – which somehow slipped out of the sequences “On Common Sand” and “Spirit of Create,” respectively; we’ll print them in the magazine next time, but want to have them present here already. In the Exchange, Roberta Chester’s address should be shorepath@myfairpoint.net, and we did not intentionally omit to note I. Century’s book, The Coffeehouse of Jewish Dreamers. For any other errors we likewise earnestly desire your pardon. Lastly, we’d like to bring to your attention a recent work that comforts our endeavor: The Jewish Odyssey of George Eliot by Gertrude Himmelfarb, whose other works, we think, might help us to solidify our rational vision of a Western culture that could keep faith with Israel and itself. There would be much to say upon such topics, in prose, as well as verse. In hope of which, this fall a blog is planned, to supplement our magazine. We’d like it to become a site to which you’ll turn for better news than nonpoetic journals can supply. After the Feast of Booths, in late October, we’d like to hear from you with essays, stories and any thoughts that may chime in with these. Wishing you all a season of renewal, Esther Cameron, Editor  |
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