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Abstract

Page 2 ?: "am deeply proud to add my name to the masthead of this publication. Few publications have -mastheads as illustriously peopled as ABR's. Our masthead reveals much about the identity of the publication as well as about the level of excellence with which it is affiliated. It is clearly noted on our masthead that "ABR is published by its editors." This means that ABÄ's editors are charged with recommending books for review, suggesting and soliciting reviewers , assisting in the editorial development of the reviews, and voting on whether reviews should be accepted for publication. Our editors are charged with working collectively in the operation ofthis publication. Its quality is a function of their unique talents and expertise, and of the time and commitment they generously donate. None of our editors are paid for their efforts. Their compensation is the continued publication of ABR in a manner consistent with its mission—a mission which remains as important today as when it was chartered nearly thirty years ago. I am grateful to all of our editors for their commitment to this publication and for the goodwill efforts they expend on its behalf. The esteemed place that ABR holds in the literary world is due to their efforts. On behalf of ABR's readership, I thank our editors for the care and work they have volunteered to the publication over the years. You will notice that changes to the masthead have been inaugurated in this issue. They are primarily reorganizational, but still important. Their aim is to clarify the editorial responsibilities at ABR. Just as the flags that fly on top of a ship's mast announce the identity of the ship, ABR's masthead reveals to its readership much about its identity and history. It is my hope that our revamped masthead will allow you to appreciate more clearly our history and understand more transparently our present. Jeffrey R. Di Leo Publisher and Editor Victoria, Texas Rants & Raves letter to the editors THE IMAGINARY POETS I am writing in response to Bill Porter's review of my edited volume. The Imaginary Poets (ABR 27.6), not to quibble but to note inaccuracies and infelicities. I do so on behalf of the volume's contributors , and to offer some necessary information omitted from Mr. Porter's considerations. The gist of Mr. Porter's criticism of the volume seems to be his belief that the contributors have appropriated the suffering of Holocaust victims. To this end, he comments, "half of the book might have been redacted and renamed The Imaginary Holocaust Survivors." I'm not sure what book he's speaking of: only four of the twenty-two entries in the volume feature imaginary victims of World War II, one of whom survives in hiding; none are sent to a concentration camp, and one turns out to have been a Nazi, perhaps. While such hyperbole (or bad math, as even a rounded-up four does not equal eleven) may well suit Mr. Porter's assessment of the volume, his inaccurate measure willfully misrepresents the contents of 7"Ae Imaginary Poets. Perhaps, too, the project itself has been misconstrued, for Mr. Porter omits the long and well-respected history of imagined authorship— not to mention of the dramatic monologue—and what such an endeavor offers its creator. To infer as Mr. Porter does that an act of imagination appropriates the suffering of others, when no claim to authenticity has been made, misses the mark entirely; the entries in The Imaginary Poets detail imagined lives, not the "sincere" feelings of real poets writing in the first person. I share Mr. Porter's aversion to such acts of appropriation, of course, and to what he perceives to be the current "reign of the bedroom confessional" (although such a statement smacks of more hyperbole, and of a Puritanical sort); but what Mr, Porter misses as well is the fact that such an aversion to mock-sincerity makes possible this volume. Revisionist history? Biographical criticism? "Creative" nonfiction? Confessional poetry? The Imaginary Poets calls into question a numberofother serious literary subjects, none of which Mr. Porter chooses to discuss. Sadly, too, the poetics wholly miss his gaze, as...