Dear Reader,
We hope you have missed us as much as we’ve missed you these first few months of 2007! A great deal has changed here at Conte since our last issue which deserves some explanation. After much thought and concern, we have decided to make Conte a bi-annual publication rather than a quarterly one for several reasons. Primarily, we want to retain and enhance our commitment to quality poetry and prose, while at the same time fully embracing the aesthetic possibilities of online publishing. With the increased burden of personal and professional obligations, as well as our own writing, we feel that a bi-annual schedule is the best format for this ambitious mission, and may allow us to add new features to Conte in the next year—such as interviews, graphic arts, and more interactive features—that have eluded us until now due to our hectic (albeit self-imposed) quarterly approach.
So onto the poems in this seventh installment, which seem once again to address those hefty, eternal themes of loss, love, and desire that are so deeply engrained in the human condition. We open this issue with a deeply moving sonnet from Barry Ballard, and follow with two poems by John Kay, an old friend of ours from issue 2.2. Stacie Leatherman and Jason Ranek, through very different voices and dramatic situations, both address the topography of domestic relationships, while the inimitable Simon Perchik follows with two untitled lyrics. Finally, we close this round of poems with some light verse from Jack Conway—which seems a fitting way to celebrate this issue as well as the promise of a new season.
On our prose side, themes of isolation and attempted reconnection abound. Tim Millas and Chloe Tribich pen two quite different, but strangely compatible, tales of individuals closed off from the world and attempting to reach out one last time. Eric Weiskott's swirling, disjointed yarn will draw you into layers of suggestion and hidden meaning. Roland Goity writes of a jarring and mutually enlightening encounter between two people who, though normally walking quite different paths, temporarily stumble across the same one. Finally, David Bellantoni rounds things out with an enlightening and introspective account of a fateful reunification by way of New York City's most signature form of public transportation.
Lastly, we hope you are as excited as we are that Conte continues to experiment and grow as one of the most unique (if we may toot our proverbial horns) magazines on the internet. After two years, we remain as committed as ever to the preeminent force of narrative, and hope that this second spring will reward you with longer days, warmer nights, and as always, the magic of good writing.
Adam & Robert
May 2007