Hello again and welcome back! Naturally, we couldn't let 2008 fizzle down without one more installment of quality poetry and prose, cooked up 'specially for all you folks huddling beside your laptop's glowy warmth this winter. We've been busy putting this one together, so let's get down to it.
This gathering of eleven poets may be the most eclectic, worldly, and diverse we've yet to assemble here at Conte, whose poems are, at turns, investigative, exotic, and humorous. Our old friend Paul Hostovsky kicks things off—it's his record-setting third appearance in Conte—and Claudia Serea follows with her concise and poignant "Letters from Romania." Yung Seoul Kim's "Issues of Immigration" questions the boundaries of both heart and culture, while Melissa Broder's "Falling Off the Richter Scale" examines issues of identity (and the search for it) with lush detail and a quick wit. Ramesh Dohan offers us a dose of surrealism in "Outside the Sky," while Anthony Frame and Justin Rigamonti both explore the tensions between our inner selves and our outward projections. Finally, Joy Ladin, Roger Jones, and Marika Stokset Staff all interrogate notions of domesticity and its various pressures on the bonds of affection before Clint Frakes concludes our poetic offerings with his vivid epic "Chelonia Mydas.".
Our fiction this issue leads with a piece by veteran author Richard Wolkomir, a twisting tale of shifting fortunes and delayed retribution, centered around a hunting trip and a fiercely stoic female who may be much more than meets the eye. Our stories share a common thread of weathering change, often as not viewed through the eyes of children. Bonnie Furlong introduces us to a tightly-knit family unit that draws closer as it begins to inexpicably unravel right before our very eyes; Garth Wolkoff brings in the story of three men named Billy, struggling to maintain a grip on their carefree adolescence even as they're dragged towards the realization that the time of their lives may already have passed them by. Finally, Jeff Lacy gives us unusually vivid perspective, narrating through the eyes of a man who can't help but remain stuck in a childlike state, struggling to comprehend his precarious situation as those around him battle on his behalf but oftentimes without his consent. We also have a stellar creative-nonfiction piece from Alex Myers, riding the current of a particularly dramatic personal change in a town where change is not exactly welcomed with open arms.
Enough blabbing from the editors - the poems and stories this issue speak for themselves, so get to reading! And speaking of speaking out, why not leave us a comment on the front page with your thoughts about this installment of Conte? Comments give us that warm and fuzzy holiday feeling. 'Tis the season, after all. Hope you have a great one.
Robert & Adam