Dear Contributor,

We have the pleasure

to tell you that the first digital issue

of The Deronda Review is now online --

an almost double issue (it had been

some ten months since our last) with a central section

on "Boundaries" -- theme that in many modes

and keys sounds through our lives, and we believe

you'll find the interplay evocative

and resonant.   As you'll see, we have retained

our format; it just isn-t printed out

but only posted as a .pdf.,

though, as we-ve promised, printed copies will

be sent to libraries and to subscribers.

This, of course, saves us much expense and labor

and makes the magazine available

to an audience not bounded by our means;

though we regret no longer being able

to furnish you with a copy you could read

offline, and most especially on the Sabbath --

the proper time for poetry, we think,

when soul-sounds carry well through clearer air.

But for this lack there is a remedy

if you'll print out the file! If you can print it

two-sided, and then bind it on the left,

you'll have a reasonable facsimile

of the magazine we would have liked to send you.

And then, if you will let your contacts know

that this rich treasury of song is out there,

we'll have the best of both worlds -- Sabbath reading

and an expanding circle of awareness.

One more advantage of this format is

that it's correctible!  If you should chance

to see an error, please advise, and we'll

update the file.  Especially, if there's something

left out from the Contributors Exchange

(now posted as a separate file), please tell us.

 

On the last page, we'd like to call attention

to the poem titled "Amendment 28,"

one poet's answer to the Newtown massacre

which deepened winter's darkness by some shades.

So far there have been twenty-seven amendments

to the U.S. Constitution; twenty-eight

corresponds to the number of the dead,

counting the perpetrator, who appears

to have been recruited by the media culture.

This next week, hopefully, will see the launch

of new site B stopdeadlyspeech.org.

It was to be amendment28.org

but that domain name turned out to be taken

by a group that seeks to amend the constitution

in order to prevent large corporations

from flooding out the democratic process

with tidal waves of lucre, even while claiming

the privileges of "persons."  It appears

to us, that these two causes are related:

in both, the specialness and dignity

of man made in G-d's image is at stake.

To a politics that focused on that issue

poetry B for what is its form if not

the proprioception of the human person? --

might yet be central, we would like to hope.

Stay tuned.  In any event, next issue's theme --

G-d willing, it will be less long delayed --

will be "The Center."  We look forward to hearing

your meditations on this truly central

theme, and pray that with the year's renewal

our thought may likewise freshen and gain strength.

 

Esther Cameron, Editor-in-Chief

 

On the day before Election Day

Someone said,

"Tomorrow is a special day"

Correction:

Everyday is a special day.

The bounds of foresight?

 

As I write these lines,

Tomorrow, on the day of rest,

the sap will begin to rise in the trees,

yet I see no almond blossoms.

The bounds of my eye sight?

 

When I sit on my balcony

and close my eyes to the vineyards

I listen to the beat of my heart,

My face to the wind.

Fear not, it's blowing in your direction