The New Renaissance

by Louise T. Reynolds, editor. The New Renaissance, 26 Heath Road, No. 11, Arlington, MA 02474-3645

Book Review by Michael Basinski

Well, Doug Holder is involved here. This is a sign of the very peopleness and concern for the poem that this magazine holds and Marc Widershien is on the advisory board and it is clear that he has the ear of the editors and they listen. Now if you went out on Halloween dressed as a ghost or a hobbit or which witch or a carrot and went door to door and when you got home you had a bushel basket full of candy, like chocolate and snickers and the like (without razor blades) and there were even a few dimes and quarters in there also ’ WOW! So this issue (and others of New Renaissance) marvelously edited magazine issue by the bestest of writers and a moment in time captured and telling what is the poem and where a poetry might find harbor in these cold days of war and the dimming of intellect (Bush is turning out the lights slowly). Lighthouse of poets on the rocky shores of dumbness! Shine! Shine out. Be the lighthouse in Alexandra that brighted all the way to Crete! It is here a moment of the smart and bright comes ripping through the sheet of black paper and you poems and poets: Let me name some of the wealth and worth: Joan Colby, Madeline Tiger, Tagore (like he won the Nobel!), Allen C. Fisher, Wendy Barker and on and on. Oh! If this were candy! Oh! The dentist bill!