Dear Readers,

This is the third issue of The High Window. We have been delighted with what appears to be a positive response to our quarterly journal. Judging by the reach of our occasional posts and the ‘likes’ on our webpage our readership is wide and growing fast. This issue contains part 2 of our feature on Italian poetry in translation, a specially commissioned feature on troubadour poetry, an essay celebrating the poetic impact made by the work of Ken Smith, six book reviews that shed light on six poets including Vona Groarke and Victoria Kennefick, and a feature exploring the work of the American poet, Philip Fried. Philip is one of four poets featuring in the High Window Press’s autumn publication, an anthology called Four American Poets. See the Press page for more details and a review of this book by the esteemed American poet, Thomas Lux.

We have been impressed with the quality of work submitted.  We have been unable to publish good poems because of the constraints of space, but we found in the (often) cultured poems appearing here great poetic awareness, erudition and subject matter ranging from Gustave Mahler, elephants and salt. The natural world features in many poems but often nature in the form of spirit or animism. Undoubtedly there are searching and questioning poems in this issue, but the collective mood is one of earnestness, resolve and, perhaps, resolution…summed up in these lines:

to build some better notion of this life
of what it means and aims towards…

– Maitreyabandhu

A gentle suggestion…

We receive no funding and there are no subscriptions for this quarterly journal. If you want to support what we are doing, the purchasing of one of our Press titles from time to time would help with some of the running costs. At the moment there are four titles available and, with good will and intentions, we are aiming to publish a book with each issue of the Journal. Of course, there is absolutely no obligation. We would like to thank all our contributors for supporting The High Window. They received no payment for their stunning efforts, but we hope our growing international readership will draw more people to their undeniable talents.

The Editors