Stuart Lishan

Visionary statement: In general I suppose I am a romantic with regards to how I feel about and approach language, both in what I hope to achieve in my own poetic efforts and in what often moves me most in the poetry of others; that is to say, I believe that there is a mystery in our experience with language. And if language is a vehicle through which we can come to know experience, our world[s] and universe[s], and our place[s] and sense[s] of it[them], then poets — to the extent that they extend, push, create, recreate, interrogate, give-birth-to-and-nurture language — expand what we know, and our notions of how we come to know.

Pushy, self-serving statement: Stuart Lishan has published work in a number of literary journals and e-zines, including, most recently and upcoming, XCONNECT, BARROW STREEET, ARTS & LETTERS, KENYON REVIEW, LA PETITE ZINE, IN POSSE REVIEW, FOR POETRY.COM, THE JOURNAL, POET LORE, AMERICAN LITERARY REVIEW, and SMARTISH PACE. The poems in this issue are from a full-length manuscript entitled, surprise, BODY TAPESTRIES, which was a finalist in last year's (2000) Walt Whitman award competition. Among Stuart Lishan's many dreams and wishes is the hope that he will one day write a mini-bio at least as good as Molly Fisk's for her poster in MUDLARK, No. 4, or as catchy as the first sentence of Jeffrey Little's bio in his issue of MUDLARK, No 15.



Contents | Mudlark No. 16