The Maynard is an online poetry magazine that I put together, along with two other fine gentlemen, Mark Hoadley and Ram Randhawa. The three of us were given a chance, by our mutual instructor/mentor Jami MacCarty, to come aboard as the new editorial team. This is our first issue, and I’m quite proud of it. We read a ton of submissions over the summer and the poems we selected are the ones that really shook us awake. Some of my personal favorites are the strange post-apocalyptic “The Future of Music” by Jen Currin, the acidic snarls of “Testing Testing Is This Thing On” by Russel Swensen, and the haunting dream-poem “Pitcher” by Russell Thornton (recent Governer General Award nominee!). They are all great, though, in their own particular way. You can hear some of them read their poems aloud too.
Aside from all the learning that comes with pouring hundreds of different poetic voices into ones head in a short period of time, this has been a great learning experience for working in a collaborative way with others. Mark and Ram are both thoughtful and considerate editors and it was really interesting to work out our decisions about various aspects of the magazine. I’m looking forward to the new issue which is currently open for submissions.
Raoul Fernandes 