Editors' Preface
Now, for those of you who think it’s easy to read through a stack of unsolicited poems and come up with five or six that are at least halfway publishable, think again. Poetry in America is no longer the distinguished art it used to be - it’s never read, hardly taught, and almost never practiced with any sort of discipline. Yet people keep stumbling to write it. So when Michael adjourned to the kitchen table with his three-inch stack, I was prepared for a long, long silence from him. To be punctuated, perhaps, by occasional groans.
Instead, after an hour he called out to me, “Hey, get in here and take a look. This guy’s actually good.”
The three poems he gave me to read were striking in their depth, intelligence and maturity. Together we looked at the author’s name and only vaguely recognized it, although his cover letter listed an impressive number of publications in well-respected journals such as Nimrod, Apalachee Review, Prairie Schooner, Pennsylvania English. A quick search on the internet yielded some interesting information - the author was a film and television director whose wife was an award-winning screenwriter, and whose son and daughter were wildly popular actors.
Stephen Gyllenhaal’s poems came to us at a turning point, when Michael and I were about to launch our own small literary press. John, the publisher of NAR, ultimately rejected Stephen’s poems solely for lack of space, but he did offer us a piece of advice that changed our lives: “Find out if this Gyllen-whatever has got any more.”
So we did. We explained to Stephen about our new company and hesitatingly asked if he did have any more - and within a week we received a collection of thirty-nine poems, which by February were to be supplemented by seven more. Almost all of them were superior, with two or three of them astounding (you’ll recognize them when you get to them). We’d hoped, at best, to get just enough to make a pleasant little chapbook. What we got was a full-blown poetic vision that approached brilliance.
From his strait-laced background to his celebrated career and family, there’s an abundance of personal material that Stephen can draw from, and does. But there’s also a passionately individual worldview evident here. By turns confessional, mischievous, humble, lustful, tender, furious and profound, his poetry compels a reader to connect with him. His pursuit of beauty and meaning takes us on a journey, from a street in Beverly Hills, to a stage in London, to a Northern California vista, to a kitchen in the morning, and beyond. All exotic locales, but all familiar.
In person, Stephen is a charming and modest man. In his poetry, he is a purveyor of infinite worlds.
Cantara Christopher
Michael Matheny
New York
June 2006
_______________
LEAVE A WORD ABOUT CLAPTRAP'S EDITORS.