| I celebrate 200 issues, mostly because I
can't help being surprised at myself for keeping the
zine going for so long. We've had the occasional crisis,
and a few double issues when life has had to take
precedence over editing, but we've kept going, ever
since 1995. So I'd like to say thanks to all those who've kept the machine going. To Bruce Bentzman, who as well as never missing a deadline for an essay, proof-reads every month and catches the slips that I've missed. To all the poets, in their extraordinary variety. I've tried to reflect this in the current issue, where I've corralled a good number of them (mostly trusty Snakeskin regulars) and rationed them to one poem apiece, to show off the Snakeskin range. We've got verses in all kinds of moods, from the deadly serious to the light and silly. I'm especially pleased to have Jane Røken's tribute poem for Margaret Griffiths, a Snakeskin poet whose death grieved so many of her friends and readers. I'm glad too to include more of Thomas Land's versions of Hungarian Jewish poetry; watching the development of Thomas's translation project over the past few years has been both a pleasure and an education for me. But I'm also delighted to include a smutty villanelle and some daft double-dactyls - reminders that at the heart of poetry there should be a joy in the dance of words. Finally to the readers. I've heard it moaned that the only people who read poems are other poets (and that they do it grudgingly, and always with an eye on the status of their own work). Snakeskin gives the lie to this; people from all over the world have found things here to give them pleasure, to make them laugh and to make them think. So thanks to all - and here's to the next two hundred. |
 |
