[Jim Hayes]

Richard Wakefield continues the Eratosphere tradition by appearing as Featured Poet in the latest issue of Light Quarterly. An excellent essay on Richard by R.S. Gwynn accompanies.

[Tim Murphy]

I think that with this appearance, John Mella might have to change the title to Heavy Quarterly. I knew all the poems but one, and they are weighty. No light verse here. Sam's essay is wonderful (so is Richard's essay on John the Valiant.) Altogether a splendid issue. It even has Hayes!

[Rose Kelleher]

Was "The Bell Rope" workshopped here? I remember reading it somewhere before. Anyway, I love it. That ending just knocks me out.

[Tim Murphy]

Sam's essay is entitled "Mr. Wakefield's Vertical Progress." John Mella asked me to contribute essays on both Hayes and Wakefield. Hayes lost out on that deal, because I agreed to do Hayes about two days before Mella asked me to do Wakefield. And frankly, if you want an essayist, don't go to some half baked poet. Go to Gwynn. Sam talks about Richard's ability to put us in a place. By passing reference he compares that skill to Mason, Steele and Murphy. I am a plainsman, but I have hiked the Cascades, the Winds, the Beartooth, the Presidential Range. My imagination is horizontal. Mason and Wakefield have vertical imaginations. Just a matter of where three boys grew up! But Richard's poems transport me to the wheatfields of Eastern Washington, to the Cascades, the mountains where David Mason's beloved brother fell to his death. Sam spends a lot of ink on Wakefield's debt to Frost, a debt owed by all the aforementioned poets. If he misses a beat, I think it's Richard's debt to Wilbur. There is a decency and sensibility in both poets that is deeply appealing, not to mention an ability to observe and accurately describe this glorious world.

In the last year, I have written "essays" on all sorts of "young poets," Alicia, Williamson, Stocks, Crawford, Nichol, Tufariello, etc., etc. I hope that when I review Wakefield's book next year, I can employ my experience as a farmer and a climber to do it justice. He is a living treasure.

[David Mason]

Heartiest congrats to Richard. I'm at a loss to know why Jim Hayes got his issue in Ireland before I've got mine in Colorado, but I do look forward to it very, very much.
Dave

[Tim Murphy]

Mason, dear friend, transatlantic comity is essential to the survival of the free world. So of course the Hayes gets his copy first.

[Jim Hayes]

Tim, when you so honored me, verily my cup ranneth over.

David, three days airmail, Ireland is first stop enroute to Europe.

Richard, heartiest congratulations on what are surely the finest poems ever in Light.

Jim

[Richard Wakefield]

Many thanks to all for your kind words. Being asked to be the featured poet was a real blow to my humility, and now, reading Sam's essay, I'm dizzy with pleasure and gratitude.
Richard
PS "The Bell Rope" was workshopped here, I think, and I believe it was posted somewhere else on line or even published in a little magazine. It will have yet another iteration in the next year or so, but this time it will most likely be changed from first-person to third, at an editor's request. It will thus have undergone the opposite transformation from the one that "Impulse" underwent.

[Rose Kelleher]

I think I did read it here. Hmm, I'm pretty stuck on the current version, so am leery of your changing it, but I'm sure you know what you're doing.

[Tim Murphy]

I think Jamie's right. Despite all of our best efforts as featured poets at Light, Wakefield takes the cake, primarily because he gave John his best, most serious work. I am blessed by RPWs, RP Warren, Richard Peter Wilbur, and most recently by Richard Paul Wakefield. I read Bell Rope to four poets today, Wilbur, Sullivan, Mason and Espaillat. Read it also to a couple ideal general readers. Everyone but Sullivan was blown away, but the last guy who blew Sullivan away was Shakespeare! Milton couldn't do it. Hardy couldn't do it. Yeats couldn't do it. So sure as hell Wakefield can't do it. That's why Alan is the EfH.