editorial

Hello and welcome to Issue 80. 

As I write, the poetry world is still heartsick at the untimely loss of Gboyega Odubanjo. Grief remains long after the headlines fade. At the House we continue to think of Gboyega’s family, friends and colleagues, and send them love. He was a poet of rare talent and a distinctive voice; we were thrilled to publish two of his poems in Issue 71 and also to feature him in a podcast. Listening again, I am struck by the energy and passion with which Gboyega approached both his writing and editing, and I am also hit hard by the beauty of his voice as he reads his poems aloud. I encourage you to revisit his words with your eyes and ears.  

Inspired by the remarkable quality of our contributors’ writing, we have spruced up the House a little of late and have two new items to introduce to you. Although we usually publish a maximum of two poems by an individual poet in The Interpreter’s House, try as we might, Louise and I couldn’t bear to discard any of Lauren Mason’s three enchanting poems. Therefore we decided to instigate ‘Featured Poet’. Alongside Lauren’s three poems, we invited her to write a few paragraphs introducing her work and giving an insight into her inspirations and craft*.

That gave me the idea of extending a similar, if briefer, invitation to all of our contributors in issue 80. So, below each poem or story and bio, you will find a short comment by the writer, focusing on whichever aspect of their piece they choose: their motivation; literary inspirations; or technique. Fear not: none of the commentaries are didactic or prescriptive explanations of one fixed meaning of a poem or story. We appreciate the importance of allowing a text’s meaning to build in the reader’s mind. Hopefully you will find the contributors’ comments as illuminating and thought-provoking as I did. However, if you prefer your texts without accompaniment, they are discreetly placed at the bottom of the pages; take what you need and leave the rest behind.      

Unfortunately, since we launched issue 79, yet another excellent literary magazine, The White Review, has had to take the difficult step of ceasing publication for an indefinite period. It continues to be a very tough time for literary journals, both financially and in terms of garnering social media attention, so I am sending you very sincere thanks for clicking into Issue 80 of The Interpreter’s House. We are still here and funded almost entirely by reader donations. Long may we continue to receive the excellent standard of submissions that we do and long may we receive the donations that enable us to publish such great writing!

Georgi

*We are also open to the future possibility of Featured Author, short fiction fans.