December 2014
E d i t o r 's   N o t e
ff@verse-virtual.org


E M I L Y   E L I Z A B E T H   D I C K I N S O N

This year, the tenth of December marks the 184th anniversary of the birthday of Emily Dickinson.  There is nothing new I can say about this phenomenal poet.   And so I dare to quote her own inimitable words:

There's a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons — 
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes — 

Heavenly Hurt, it gives us — 
We can find no scar,
But internal difference,
Where the Meanings, are — 

None may teach it — Any — 
'Tis the Seal Despair — 
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air — 

When it comes, the Landscape listens — 
Shadows — hold their breath — 
When it goes, 'tis like the Distance
On the look of Death — 
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On the home front, I am happy to report that the state of the Verse-Virtual is strong and getting stronger.  Each month we have more and more visitors (since June we have had more than 36,000 pageviews). I am receiving more and more submissions.  The community is beginning to be a real community.  Nevertheless — I repeat my usual request that readers and writers write to each other — (all writers' email addresses are on their pages right beneath their names).  I want very much to make V-V more than another dry literary journal.

One of the things I try to do toward that end is to ask poets to think of their pages as Wholes. To think in terms of Gestalt.  To have on their pages poems which somehow relate to each other — 
by theme, form, tone, repeated lines, and so on.  This is far more appealing than just having a bunch of different poems lumped together on a page.  Yes?

Lastly, I wish you happy holidays and thank you for your warm support during this cold winter season (here in New York anyway).


Respectfully submitted,
Firestone Feinberg