No: a journal of the arts – 2005

No is more than a literary magazine; it is a journal of the arts. That lofty subtitle is not just a marketing ploy. No really does bring the literary magazine to the level of art form. It is so well put together it succeeds as a discreet collection of poems and as a unified whole. Beautifully bound, this creative cornucopia is overflowing with the smartest, edgiest, and most provocative poetry. This issue heavily features Marjorie Welsh’s poetry and painting, including the book-length “From Dedicated To,” which acts as a kind of book-within-a-journal in this case. No is more than a literary magazine; it is a journal of the arts. That lofty subtitle is not just a marketing ploy. No really does bring the literary magazine to the level of art form. It is so well put together it succeeds as a discreet collection of poems and as a unified whole. Beautifully bound, this creative cornucopia is overflowing with the smartest, edgiest, and most provocative poetry. This issue heavily features Marjorie Welsh’s poetry and painting, including the book-length “From Dedicated To,” which acts as a kind of book-within-a-journal in this case. The journal also features new poems from the likes of Mary Jo Bang, Charles Bernstein, Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge, Peter Gizzi, Barbara Guest, Ann Lauterbach, Cole Swenson, and the late Robert Creeley—quite a selection from various of the more associative-based, language driven schools of the past half-century. Also worth mentioning are Keith Waldrop’s translations of Charles Baudelaire. He writes in “Beauty”: “Poets, before my high postures that seem to lift from the proudest / monuments, will spend their days in austere study // since, to fascinate such tractable lovers, I’ve pure mirrors that make / everything more beautiful…” No performs the same function as Beauty in Baudelaire’s poem: to exponentially magnify and reflect the beauty that is the fascination and subject of the poets it presents.