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The Pedestal Magazine > Archives > Issue 55 > Poetry >Introduction by Arlene Ang

Introduction by Arlene Ang

          As another year draws to a close, I can't help but think back on how 2009 went and, as it happens, also of the first nine years of The Pedestal Magazine.

          Based on The Penguin Dictionary of Symbols, nine is "the mean for gestation and successful search and to symbolize the successful outcome of exertion and the fulfillment of creation." I like to think that this is true of the nine years during which The Pedestal Magazine has been sharing art and literature through the internet, initially only using virtual pages, and now moving in a multimedia direction replete with audio recordings alongside published poems, as well as slam/spoken word performances. And, as one might feel at the end of a pregnancy, I can only look forward to and feel excited about what the future has in store for the magazine.

          For this triple celebration issue, I'm pleased to present a festive party of previous and new contributors. There is definitely eggnog in the air—in spite or because of the dinner quail, the skull-picking, playtimes with a macabre doll, the meals with Mother, or simply forgetting where you left the kids.

          Reflecting on the meaning of the coming holidays and also the nine-year anniversary of The Pedestal Magazine, here are twelve lines from the twelve poets in this issue:

Listening, I try to learn a lesson about love—

something once- upon we celebrated and held to like a mother, that one thing
     that
                    pulls the sky's ladder down
as song is upon air, as seed is upon dirt.

I am uncertain how to hold
                    our memories of how to swim kiss kill
                              { butterfly bodega, giant tiger-lily monarchs parking }
          with the flames of my fireplace.

Blued by the moon raising its single horn,
I have seen the wrappings, of aluminum flower stems, some form of Holiday,
                    the winter burglarized.
Like anything else, this is being ready for something.

With best wishes for Christmas and 2010,

Arlene Ang

Spinea, Italy
21 December 2009


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