Poetry is not dead or dying, as some would have you believe. It is alive and gnashing, and comes fully loaded.

The poets plying their craft in the folds of this issue of The Enchanting Verses Literary Review are testament to that—on, O so many levels and layers. Each from diverse backgrounds and cultures (and despite them—despite too their varied forms and approaches) as an unlikely collective, these poets have one thing in common: they are all writing in a distinctly modern idiom. And, whether the poet works with a clarity of vision or within seemingly feverish abstractions, there are many depths to be plumbed here.

I would rather not pluck an individual poem or poet from this oddly shaped hat. I would rather let these verses speak for themselves—not for any other reason than to let each word nudge its neighbor, each line unfold upon the next in a sweep of cross-cultural synesthesia.  Yes, the cross-section (if viewed with a more empirical eye) is bold and richly diverse. There are poets here who write as survivors of twentieth-century tyranny and oppression; there are those who write from a calm of democratic continents and domestic bliss (although we will be quick to note that more often than not, appearances can be deceiving). There are others taking the scholarly approach who wish to observe their world more anonymously, reinterpreting space in a reinvention of past classics, and others still, who wish to navigate us through the headwaters of post-modernist abstraction. Each approach, of course, is as valid as the next.

Imagine, if you will, that you are far from the madding crowd, alone in a forest or perhaps traversing a mountain chain, deep in an underground cave among stalagmites and their polar opposites—and then, let these poems written by poets from the Everywhere, populate you with their vast protuberances, allow them to seep under your skin and carry you further on your journeys; allow them to become your most singular acquaintances or your oldest friends. And, thank them, honor them (as I have) multiple times, for giving us their versions of the world—and how the words have become their songs, their imaginings, their modern poems.

What a rich, profound, moving armory this is. These poets are very much alive.

Marc Vincenz, Guest Editor (Issue XXI)