[Terese Coe]

This issue of Anon is superb! Oliver, your poems are formidable, and even more impressive on the page. Rose Kelleher's "Hologram": another original and very worthwhile treat. Congratulations to you both!

I must say Mike Stocks has taste more to my liking than that of many other editors on the planet.

The discussion of creative writing degrees in the form of two essays (by an amusingly satirical Hugh McMillan and by David Morley) and one interview (with Cheryl Follon) is the best I have seen in one publication. Really, don't miss this!

Am happy to have two translations in it as well, from Heinrich Heine and Ronsard.

Orbis is another publication with unusually lively and lyrical taste, but I'll save something for later.

[Roger Slater]

Terese, your translations are wonderful, and Rose and Oliver join you in making this yet another quality issue. Well done!

Now what about Orbis? You were about to say....

[Terese Coe]

Glad you approve of the translations, Bob!

Orbis is a little magazine with a big engine (and I don't mean a search engine). In addition to prose and poems with verve and originality, Editor Carole Baldock has designed a publication with several unusual features of considerable interest to poets. There is a section of reviews of other litmags by Nessa O'Mahony; a Readers' Award (in the form of British Pounds) for which readers choose the best poems from the previous issue; a letters section which shows Orbis has a literate and interested constituency; a feature called "For 'em Or Against 'em?" with this issue's debate on Performance Poets; a section of well written reviews presided over by Rupert Loydell; a section called "Past Master" which this issue highlights a poem by Emily Bronte and short commentary by Sarah Wardle (including a description of EB's bedroom at Haworth where she "refused a doctor as she died"); a listing of current competitions and calls for work; and an essay by Anthony James suggesting that contemporary novelists return to confronting social problems in keeping with the tradition of the novel as it was written for so many years. James writes, for example:

"Socially committed novels simply do not get published [today] and too many published novelists are too submissive to their agents and editors to attempt books which confront the society in which they live."

Orbis boasts a lively dialogue with its readership that elicits a sense of community all too often missing from other litmags. No surprise Wendy Cope calls it her favorite litmag! An especially good choice for a subscription. For more information on subscriptions, write to carolebaldock@hotmail.com (no email submissions). Submissions go to Ms. Baldock at 17 Greenhow Avenue, West Kirby, Wirral, Cheshire CH48 5EL, UK.

I'm honored to have "Saint John's Bread" and my translation of Rainer Maria Rilke's "Lullaby" appear in this issue (#131).

[Rose Kelleher]

Thanks for the info about Orbis, Terese. I'm going to order a sample copy and check it out.

I read Anon 3 last week and think it's their best issue yet, with the exception of those two pieces by that Kelleher broad. For me, the standouts were "Sunflower in Jerusalem Street" by Oliver Murray, "To Watch Your Tent Being Stolen" by Greg Lucas, "Bevy" by Stephen Murphy, "Beast" by Deborah Tyler-Bennett, and "Snow, Predicted" by Matt Merritt. And I found an unusually hefty percentage of the others worthwhile, too.

I also enjoyed Hugh McMillan's irreverent take on Creative Writing degrees ("Help ma bob, what a shocker, let me go and lie down") but then, of course, I would.

[diprinzio]

Congratulations to all of you in Anon 3. This mag just gets better and better.