Poetry Issue 1
Welcome to the poetry section of the first issue of Pig in a Poke. It’s easy to be a good editor when you get to choose from the quality poetry submissions that I received. I could not even fit them all into this issue, so you’ll be seeing some of them in later issues. Some that I rejected were very good, but I want this magazine to be something special. And I think it is.
Issue one features poems by featured poet Jim Daniels, plus work by Lyn Lifshin, Louis McKee, Howie Good, Carol Lynn Grellas, Robin Stratton, and other talented writers.
Sometimes it's as if I picked up right where I left off. Lyn Lifshin had two poems in the very first Pig in a Poke. I won't reveal our ages by saying when that was. Later, I published chapbooks by Jim Daniels and Louis McKee. A copy of Jim's book, The Long Ball, is forever ensconced in the Baseball Hall of Fame. I also published a chapbook by Charles Bukowski, who can't be here with us for obvious reasons.
This issue is true to the Pig's legacy. It also has David Barker, a contemporary of Bukowski's who was published in Wormwood Review, the holy grail of the small press. And Christopher Cunningham, who has carried on the lean striking style into a new generation.
All the names here mean something to me. Good. Doreski. Grellas. Stratton. Allard. Catlin. Mesler. Something warm and solid as hugging a big old oak tree in midsummer.
I hope you like it. I'm proud of it.
Harry Calhoun
Editor
