Senior Poetry Editor, Silk Road Review

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I am excited to announce that I have accepted the position of Senior Poetry Editor for Silk Road Review, a publication of Pacific University. I will be editing content for two volumes of this excellent literary journal in the 2010-2011 academic year, taking over from Abby Murray. Hers are big shoes to fill; platform shoes with glitter and plastic sunflowers on them, if I know Abby. I only hope I can bring half as much style to the job.

In all seriousness, it is an honor to accept responsibility for continuing this publication’s tradition of both celebrating established poets and introducing new, up-and-coming voices into the ongoing conversation of poetry. The magazine focuses on place as a touchstone for the work it solicits and features. My poem “How Can a Boy Hate Fishing?,” for example, featured in Vol. 4 last year, is set in the desert farming community on the U.S.-Mexico border where I grew up. The current issue takes you to an inherited condo in Florida, a jeepney in the Philippines, a house trailer in rural Michigan, a fire escape in New York, and the Chinese Himalayas. By subscribing now, you will receive both this issue, and the next issue, which will be assembled under my editorship.

I look forward to writing about my experience on the other side of the publication process, as I sift through poems with a talented team of cohorts, panning for those nuggets of earned transcendence. Submissions are currently being accepted through the journal’s online submission manager. Here’s to a year of saying “yes” to great poetry.