‘And yet we all
fix our binoculars on the horizon’s hazy fear-heaps
and cruise toward them’

Thomas Lux (from ‘Pedestrian’)

Dear Readers

Welcome to the Spring 2017 issue of The High Window. Has it only been three months since the last issue? December seems a long time ago! We have been busy putting together this issue for your delectation. We are proud to present a translation feature on Brazilian and Portuguese poetry that includes the work of 11 poets, including Ruy Belo, Astrid Cabral, and Judith Teixeira. This month’s essay is on a translation theme and looks at translations by Jane Draycott and Simon Armitage. Angela Smyth has enriched our journal with her illustrations of poems by Victoria Kennefick, Stephen Boyce, Joanna Boal, Myki Byrne and Judith Teixeira. (Please check out Angela’s work here and explore her art in the links provided as we feel she is a special talent.) Our American poet is Jay Passer who is a true original. Don’t miss him in conversation. We have reviews of the work of Clive James, Keith Hutson, David Gascoyne, Catherine Graham, Alan Price and (ed) Louis de Paor. The main poetry section is a rich mix of religious and historical poems and also poems that focus on specific objects and things as their starting points: dandelions, potatoes, eggs, vellum, watches, bracelets, gum trees. A big thank you to our poets, translators, reviewers, essayist, artist and American poet for making this issue possible. And to you our readers for spreading the word of The High Window. We have a growing readership, but we still need a bit of support with sales from our Press site. If just five people from five thousand readers purchased a book from the six books available it would help us greatly with our running costs.

The High Window publication for Spring is From Inside by Anthony Howell. Anthony is a writer and poet of international reputation as his writing credits testify. From Inside contains poems about politics and current affairs, they are honest, fearless, brave enough to say the unsayable, but with a fidelity to the high art of poetry. There will be a launch in London in March. Details to follow.

Finally, we would like to dedicate this issue to the memory of Thomas Lux. The editors have been in email contact with Tom for a year. He contacted us as a fan of our journal, wanted to submit to us any new poems he might write, and agreed to review and write detailed blurb comments for the anthology Four American Poets (see the Press page). Tom Lux was a lovely man and a talented poet and teacher. His work is published in the UK by Bloodaxe.

The Editors