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provided by art, literature, poetry, music, eloquence, insight, knowledge; turning the trash of the world into fascination and delight, a reminder of what it is our chance, possibly our responsibility, to turn "reality" into: a palace of beauty at the heart of truth's harsh empire. We can at least serenade one another on the banks of the rising seas as the glaciers melt and the continents fry to deserts, even if no one else listens. A certain elegiac strain pervades many of the poems in this issue, from Phil Fried's evocation of the ghost of Kenneth Burke to Eric Swedberg's X-rays of failed romance, from Deanne Bayer's search for "amber afternoons stroked/with summer's honeyed sun" to the opening installment of Ho Lin's new novella, in 
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which a "would-be warrior" broods over his missed vocation and compensates for his regrets with a romantic and tragic fantasy set in a China that seems both ancient and new. Not least of these are three poems by Anna Sears, our new poetry editor, whom we warmly welcome with this issue. A sharp edge appears in work by Khrynn Yvonne McManus, who combines an enchanting morbidity with a little sardonic snarl, and E.M. Schorb's prose poems on love as disenchanted magician and fettered locksmith. To lighten the mix, we offer Jesse Freeman's brief riff on the meaning of a French April Fool's Day. Our issue opens with a very special section: the brilliant winner of Caveat Lector's 2005 Poetry Contest, "How to Steal the Color Blue  |
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