|
 WINTER
2026
As a
nationwide
storm
trails a
wake of
ice,
snow and
bitter
cold,
we're
faced
with
another
loss to
relentless
time.
A long
time
ago, Sally
Cook
came to
New York
as
an
ambitious, twentyish
artist
to join those
halcyon
days of
Willem
De Kooning,
Jackson
Pollack
and Lee
Krasner.
As with
all of
us, too
soon she
found
herself
in her
last
days,
well
past
ninety.
She had
traveled
quite a
distance.
Near the
end of
that
arc,
I joined Dr. Salemi
to see
one of
her last
shows as
a
painter
on Great
Jones
Street
in NYC
in 2023.
From the
art on
display,
she
seemed a
talented
practitioner
of an
approach
once
favored
by
Frieda Kahlo
but
with
very
different
material.
In fact,
dismissed
in the
1950s by the
abstract
expressionists
then
throwing
chairs
at one
another
in
barfights
at the
Cedar
Tavern,
Sally
left New
York
City
seventy
years
ago to
find her
own
path.
Those
who
appreciate
her
paintings
or enjoy
reading her
poems
today
don't
need
prompting
to
appreciate
the rich
path she
followed
once
she'd
departed
that
rough
New York
crew.
Cook
developed
into
a
remarkable,
unique
painter
and a
truly
fine
poet.
We
cannot
show her
art as
that
would
entail
copyright
infringements,
but we
do have
many of
her
poems
from her
own
submissions.
If you
want to
see
images
of her
paintings,
search
for her
name as
poet and
painter.
Recollections
and a
fine
biographical
essay on
her life
by
Joseph
S.
Salemi
are up
with
today's
issue.
Enjoy...
We have new
poems
from
C.B.
Anderson, Bruce
Bennett,
Susan
Jarvis
Bryant,
Robert
Darling, Steven Duplij,
Mary
Freeman,
Claudia
Gary,
Pierpaola
Isoldi,
Andrea
Kibel, Arthur
Mortensen,
Michael
Palma,
Brian
Palmer,
Carolyn
Raphael, Joseph
S. Salemi,
and Jan
Schreiber.
A
repaired
version
of
William
Carpenter's
English
Civil
War epic
is also
presented.
There
are also
essays
by Mary
Freeman
and
Steven Duplij.
Another
huge loss:
96-year-old X.J.
Kennedy,
poet,
translator,
anthologist,
editor,
and
author
of
numerous
volumes
of
verse,
children's
stories,
and
academic
textbooks
passed
away the
30th of
January.
He and
his late
spouse
Dorothy
co-edited
the
journal
Counter
Measures
in
the
1970s,
an
important
predecessor
to the
New
Formalist
movement
in the
1980s.
A highly
influential
writer,
and
mentor
to many
younger
writers, he had a
gift of
not only
writing
brilliant
light
verse
but
getting
it
published
in what
was,
early
on, a
fairly
hostile
environment
to any
kind of
humor or
use of
formal
prosody
in
poetry.
Poetry:
Select
to see
new and
past
postings.
Sally
Cook:
Some
thoughts
and
recollections
on the
late
painter
and poet.
Essays:
Mary
Freeman
on
Uncommon
Sense
Steven
Duplij
on the
West,
Sadness
In the
Fall,
Love,
and a
note on
travel
in
China.
Reviews: La
Divina
Commedia,
Michael
Palma's
new
translation
(complete),
review
by
Joseph
S.
Salemi
Archive
from
Original
Journal
(1996-2018):
Divided
into two
sections,
New and
Old.
Online
Prosody:
As of
now this
will
remain
in the
Old
archives
until
editing
and
rewrite
are
complete.
Contributions
are by
assignment,
as we do
not have
the
resources
to
manage
online
submissions.
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