Molly Bloom's joy of six
This sixth online issue of Molly Bloom brings to 61 the number of poets to be featured since the title's relaunch in May 2013; while a majority of those fit more or less within what might be termed a modernist tradition, the current selection demonstrates an eclecticism based on nothing more definable than the editor's sense of what works. Art takes different voices and forms. Just as the most enjoyable parts of a thriller or crime novel are those in which the mystery is set up, before any (often bathetic) resolution is revealed, the numinous in religion resides not in knowledge, but in its lack. A similar magic can be gleaned from reading scientific texts with only a partial understanding – and this sense of incomplete comprehension, missing knowledge, faulty interpretation, may be an essential element in the enjoyment of poetry. To claim, as many do of much good writing, that they 'don’t understand it' is to demonstrate that the point is missed, along with enjoyment of the detail, the resonances, the music, the suggested imagery, the sense of something beyond or other than 'understanding'. Do you 'understand' a Beethoven symphony, a Charlie Parker solo, a Kandinsky, Picasso or Chagall - even a Rembrandt? What does this photo mean? Or these poems?
Aidan Semmens, editor, January 2015
In Molly Bloom 6:
Gerrie Fellows
Norman Finkelstein
Carole Birkan
Katharine Peddie
Stephan Delbos
Deena Linett
Peter Robinson
JL Williams
Ric Hool
Chris Hunt
Simon Smith
“The process of speech creates meanings” - Daniel C Dennett