In an age when so few take care with how language is used, and when so few seem to care that so little care is taken, one might find a necessary measure of consolation and of hope in the painstakingly well shaped lines that our poets offer.  This issue of Saint Katherine Review is devoted to sharing what our poets have offered.  As genres go, we generally understand fiction to be focused upon the art of narration, of telling a story; we generally understand drama to be focused upon the art of human interaction; and we understand exposition—essays, etc.—to be focused upon the art of argument, of presenting a point.  In each of these genres, the language serves as a carefully shaped vehicle for something else—a previously conceived tale, or a prior event, or a prior idea. 

While poetry is understood to be yet another genre, it is best understood as not being the vehicle for something else.  Poetry, after all, is understood to be focused upon the art of language itself, language, as such.  

Long ago, I ceased to think of poetry as a way to express what I previously wanted to say, and began, instead, to understand poetry to be the scene of meaning-making, the place where I—attending primarily to language as such—might glimpse my words leading me to seeing what I did not know to seek, saying what I had not known to say. 

Enjoy these scenes of meaning-making in the pages that follow, and trust your own attention to language to serve in opening these texts to apprehend what necessary consolations they avail.

—Scott Cairns, Director of the Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing at Seattle Pacific University, Editor Emeritus for St. Katherine Review.