"Suppose someone submitted all your poems for you?"

I came across this interview with Kathleen Fitzpatrick on Nic Sebastian’s blog Very Like A Whale and was intrigued. In July, Kathleen submitted some poems to us on behalf of her husband, W.F. Lantry. Royston, J and I selected “Rainbow Bridge” for publication in Issue #12 of Cha and the work is mentioned in Henry W. Leung’s review of the issue on the Lantern Review blog:

W.F. Lantry’s “Rainbow Bridge” is a kind of translation, deriving from a Song Dynasty scroll painting that, in this case, is evidence of a woven bridge having existed in antiquity. Lantry wonderfully demonstrates the limitations of visual art without language; his poem verb-alizes the painting, not only exalting in the details but animating them and, in the process, expounding instructions to build such a bridge. The attention to detail would be prolix if not for the enjambment and inconsistent rhymes.

Looking back, Bill was the only Issue #12 contributor (in these categories: poetry, prose, photography) who did not have a “Meet the author/artist” post on this blog, partly because I was reluctant to ‘bother’ Kathleen to get more information about the poem — I thought both of them must be very busy. Now it looks like a missed opportunity to enter into more of a conversation with her.

That said, we are really happy that Kathleen sent us Bill’s poetry and we look forward to reading more of his works in Cha and in other places.

–