Visit now to read new work by
Jason Labbe
Jeff Mock
Judith Nacca
Marilyn Nelson
Margot Schilpp
Justin Sider
Claire Zoghb
And, my last managing editor’s letter (from January, but I’m not changing it yet):
Expect a huge year for LOCUSPOINT. Editors who’ve been slaving away for the past several months are now coming back, their arms heaped with phenomenal work by their local colleagues, peers, and mentors at a rate so overwhelming I’m not sure how to get it all out there fast enough!
I’m beginning to suspect that interest in LOCUSPOINT is growing and, with it, I hope there’s excitement. Responses to LOCUSPOINT that I’ve encountered so far have been varied. While many people find the project interesting, at least one critic has mused over the “cronyistic” nature of what we do.
And it’s true: if you define it that way, LOCUSPOINT is devoted to cronyism. I ask editors to publish their friends, their lovers, their friends’ lovers, their brothers, their mothers, their enemies, and their frenemies. Editorial objectivity does not exist here—at least, not in the way it does elsewhere. These editors still select the best work: they just select work by people within their community. I think that’s important to note.
Everyone defines community differently. For some poets, it’s purely geographical, tied intimately to the place they live and write. For others, it’s chronological, allowing them to pick up companions along the way. This is especially true for the most transient of poets, those moving to take short- or long-term jobs in the academy or elsewhere, or whose familys are rooted in rootlessness. I don’t value one form of community over the other, but because the internet is already so akin to linking us virtually, I think the work of the editors does rely so much on place as a unifying element.
As much as a community is defined by what it includes, it’s just as much about what is excluded. That’s why it’s my intention to keep LOCUSPOINT pressing along for as long as I can. I hope to revisit completed cities in the future under the leadership of new eyes and voices, editors whose unique experiences will lead them to unique epiphanies about their community.
It’s routine in our world for the reader to decry the anthology as irresponsible for purporting full inclusion—in an attempt to “define” a movement, a group, a time—but, by necessity, overlooking some. We don’t do that here. We don’t purport to define. We simply explore.
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