In this issue of Ibbetson Street you will experience poetry by such fine poets as Jared Smith, Brendan Galvin, Jennifer Barber, Kathleen Spivack, Marge Piercy, Linda Conte, and many more. We are very pleased that Melissa Shook, a retired Professor of Photography at the University of Massachusetts Boston, and a nationally and internationally exhibited photographer, has a self-portrait gracing our front page, and an alluring sketch adorning our back.

Well, yet another Ibbetson Street has arrived. You will note the striking front cover - an arresting photograph of an enigmatic spiral staircase from Jennifer Matthews, with splendid graphic touches (note the spectral birds) by Rose Gardina. On the back, our long time contributor the accomplished artist Bridget Galway, has a haunting painting of a woman captured in the face of a clock - of all things. Ah! sweet mystery of life! Not only do we have fine art, but we have our usual lineup of fine poetic talent with folks like Jean Valentine, George Kalogeris, Teisha Twomey, Marge Piercy, Kathleen Spivack, X. J. Kennedy, Diana Der Hovanessian, Victor Howes, Mike Ansara, Rhina P. Espaillat, Maggie Dietz and so many others.

In this issue we are thrilled to have the work of such noted poets as: Martha Collins, John Skoyles, Jennifer Barber, Daniel Bosch, Dan Tobin, Andrea Cohen, Marge Piercy, Alfred Nicol, Fred Marchant, Kathleen Spivack, and many others. This is the first issue edited by our new managing editor Rene Schwiesow. We are sure you will be pleased with the issue she puts together. Schwiesow and Lawrence Kessenich work on alternate issues and we are lucky to have these skilled folks on Ibbetson Street. Also - in Ibbetson Street 34, we have the artwork of Bridget Galway that adorns the front and back covers. Bridget's artwork and poetry have appeared in a number of issues and we are glad she continues to contribute her fine work to our magazine.

Poetry by Kathleen Spivack, Marge Piercy, Mary Buchinger Bodwell, Ellaraine Lockie and more...

In this issue you will see poetry by the likes of Marge Piercy, Andrea Cohen, Ted Kooser and many others. We are also grateful to have great photographs on our front and back covers by Glenn Bowie and Jennifer Matthews. Lawrence Kessenich has an insightful review of Endicott Professor Charlotte Gordon's new book, Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Her Daughter Mary Shelley.

Poetry from John Skoyles, Denise Provost, Lee Sharkey, Richard Hoffman, and more...

The Bagel Bards (or Bagels with the Bards) (are) a group of poets varied in age, race, gender meet, share poems, discuss poetry, drink lots of coffee, chew a bagel if so desired, sometimes sell their books. The atmosphere is generous and open to all, and you don't have to be a poet to attend. What I find most exciting about the Bards, people here are not conscious of reputation and achievement, but love the poem and good friendly unpretentious talk. That doesn't mean that pretensions don't exist if that's what you desire, but the coffee is strong, the people sincere and are publishers of small press magazines, pamphlets and books. If you want to be in an atmosphere that is intelligent without self-involved, convoluted literary talk of people who need to prove themselves and announce themselves as artists, here is a place to and the pleasure that good literary company may offer. -- Sam Cornish

The scene.7:45 AM, Au Bon Pain, Davis Square, Somerville. The lone figure of Dennis Daly, at a table seemingly praying over a poetry book. This is how Saturday morning breaks for the Bagel Bards. By 10 AM there is a cacophony. 90-something Joe Cohen, on his wheelchair, bites into his cheese danish, drinks his black coffee, and shows us his latest photographs. Krikor arrives, tall and regal, looking for all the world like a refugee from a Russian novel. And Harris Gardner, a shock of white hair, an impresario of verse, an Einstein with a bag of books from Salvation Army bins - offers all of us a share of his pastry. And so it goes with Luke and Zvi and Lawrence and Paul - and all the others. We are regulars. We are kibbitzers-old, middle-aged, rarely young. Stumblebums, friends, writers, poets. We cross our stage-give our soliloquies, our Sermon on the Mount, the stunningly bad jokes, the salient points. Then...we call it a day... and drift away....