About the Winter 2000 Edition

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The Fairfield Review

About The Winter 2000 Edition

Welcome new readers and old friends, to the Winter 2000 issue of The Fairfield Review. We begin a new year and a new time when nothing is the same about our chronicle of time. It is a strange time, as Garrison Keillor noted on New Year's Day, when all of the calendar digits have changed. For us, it is the celebration of our fourth year, when we continue learning that words are full of play and discovery.

As we publish this new edition, late in January, we are paused here in Connecticut by a bright, snowy winter storm, and we feel numbed by the arctic winds that buffet us. Winter has come late, oblivious of the calendar. Yet we notice the beauty in the bleakness of snowy fields and bare branches against blue skies. We breathe in the coldness and slide down bright snowy hills, laughing and shouting like children. And, as we huddle before the fire, our hands clasping favorite old mugs filled with steaming tea and coffee, we warm ourselves with the love of here and now, the words that surround us, and think to the red heat of Valentine's Day and beyond -- to the soft breezes of spring. Here, in these pages, we bring you the ecstasy of the moment, of living in the here and now, in the streets and back country, of exploring (once again) the themes of love and passion.

We start off with a story about both passion and the attempt to capture its expression at an instant. In a new and different style, Rowan Wolf's Strange Days speaks to the pursuit of emotional clarity and ecstasy, all at once. After you are drawn in to this definition of a moment, please go on to read Slowly, It Happens, by David Meuel, who knows how to move quite beautifully from the human to the ethereal. We've published David before and we're proud to bring him back with this piece. Go then to Linda Sue Grimes' I Envy, to complete the corporal set. Following in the theme of love and longing is Richard Fein's Tactile Memories. And we finish this theme with our classic, Sonnet CXV, by William Shakespeare. This is a less-well-known piece, since it comes numerically before a much more popular sonnet, yet it is our personal favorite, and our gift to all you passionate souls for Valentine's Day.

Moving from the realm of love and passion to cleverness and fun, join E.P. Allen In the gutter (just where my friends always said I'd be). It's not what you'd expect. In keeping with the street scene, go on to People think I'm cold, by John Walsh, then walk over to Shoplifter, by Richard Fein. Stay with the city scene and visit Linda Lerner's lyrical Going Somewhere, Who's Going Somewhere? and, to finish off the Gotham set, Paul Kloppenberg metaphorically describes the life of a New York Skyscraper.

Take a detour, and time away, to think about time in Alan MacDougall's countries. This poet-of-the-Slam recently died in April, 1999, and we received a collection of his poems, published post-humously by his sister, Barbara Dan¹. We are proud to bring you three of his works. Start with Time enough. Sit with it awhile. Then thumb over to Counterclock, Vanishing. And, once you've caught the rhythm of his pauses, finish most appropriately with dream sleep.

From there, please visit Guatemala, by Michael David Coffey, and feel the contrast of a land before and after. Then return to America with us, back to the darkness of winter, with One November Night, by David Meuel. David's last poem in this edition, The Neighbor's Garden, follows well here. And we always like to finish on an upbeat, so don't despair here. Be sure to end with Converse, by Yosh and then be uplifted by Epitaph, from John Walsh.

You can find a complete list of this issue's writings in the Table of Contents and information about contributors in About the Authors. Please send us your comments and suggestions. When you visit our site, please fill out our Guest Book or drop us a note via email. Please continue to send us your work and encourage other writers to venture forth with their poetry and short stories. We continue to look for work from "new" authors of all ages.

Thank you for joining us in this edition. We look forward to bringing you the best of newly mined authors and those jewels we have found before. In the meantime, enjoy the bright sun as it shines on you, even on the coldest of days. Frolic in the snow, and images of snow. We'll be joining you in watching for the first crocuses, those harbingers of rebirth. And we'll be back when the sun is warm again in New England, when the woods are green, and all life has swarmed outside to soak up spring, spilling into summer.

Edward Granger-Happ
Janet Granger-Happ
Editors

¹Look for Alan MacDougall's "Poetry Grand Slam Finale," which comes out in a collection of over 300 poems this spring. (ISBN 1-884898-09-2). For further information, please contact Barbara Dan at Eden Publishing.