Editor's Note

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Ever since we started working on this issue of the Minetta Review, kids have
been coming up to me on the street and asking, "Hey, Arianna, what's the theme?"
Some speculated that it would be wings, saying that surely there is no better way to
express the metaphoric flight that we take when we write. Others told me it should
be the theme of keys, since writing is the key to unlocking some of the most
beautiful secrets of life. One girl, I don't want to name names here (Lindsay), even
said something about having it be windows, since poetry is the window to the soul.
All these ideas were excellent, but I believe that I came up with an even better
theme. In fact, I came up with a theme so exquisite and deep in its metaphoric
possibilities that once it is in place, it will forever change the way people think
about literary magazines. That theme: Maureen.

Actually, all joking aside, Maureen is only one part of the theme because, you
see, Maureen is a poet who has been published in this very issue of the magazine.
And in the series of pictures about her, Maureen is doing everyday things. So the
theme is the poet doing everyday things, or more concisely, everyday things
(maybe I should have said that to begin with). "Okay Arianna," one person said
incredulously, "that's all very interesting, but what is the point? Why Maureen?
Why this theme? Why everyday things?" Well, Lindsay, here's the point: we who
write, often don't choose to write because we sit around considering the abstract
concepts of wings or love or even the ocean. The best poems don't have to come
out of walking on the beach during a stormy day or out of seeing a butterfly come
out of a cocoon. Poems come out of the synthesis of the things that are around us
everyday.

Take a look at this issue of the Minetta Review. Our poems are littered with the
everyday, be it a popular television show about an adolescent girl and her spunky
single mom, or the casual use of the word "ass." Even the more serious poems
invite the reader in with images that work, because they incorporate the metaphoric
and the everyday in ways that many of us never considered before. These are
poems grown from things we hear about in our Natural Science classes or things
that happen to us on the subway. The seeds of these poems can be found in the
route in which we walk to school or in the kind of breakfast foods we choose to
consume. Poetry reflects not just the moments in which we have epiphanies or
deep emotions (although those play a crucial part) but, also, everything else around
us that affects us in the everyday. The seeds of one of Maureen's poems could lie
in the moment that she is brushing her teeth or sitting by the pool. She might
suddenly find the way to express a deeply personal experience when watching TV
or crossing the street. The poetic and the everyday are inextricably tied together,
something to consider while looking over this issue of the magazine.

So if you want windows and keys and pictures of Paris in the rain, look
elsewhere (like old issues of this magazine). This is my issue, and it's about the
poetic everyday. It's about everyone that is published here and the small things
that go on in their lives that shape their poetry. That's the point.

Arianna Georgi


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© 2003 the Minetta Review
All rights revert to the author upon publication.
ISSN 1065-9169