Introduction by Arlene Ang

          For the 12-year anniversary issue of The Pedestal Magazine, I’m thrilled to present twelve poems that captivated me in terms of voice, subject matter, and vivid language.

          First off, “Under Fresh Growth” (Emily O’Neill) offers some Christmas blues, complete with old home movies and someone in the garden beheading stalks of rhubarbs. More relatives arrive “On Holy Saturday” (Christine Potter), their curses and silence enough to make the neighbor’s cherry tree weep. When it comes to dysfunctional families, it’s hard not to begin to envy the boy raised by wolves in “Idea of Odor on a Wet Dog” (Robert Haynes).

          As we encounter the fragility of another species in “Survival of the Sea Star” (David Salner), we're forced to pause and consider our own survival.

          On a more experimental note, the detached, stagelike directions and line of questioning in “Instructions to the Work Crew Assembling This Poem” (Kit Kennedy) complement and contrast “The Street Instructs the Eye” (Roger Aplon), which focuses on haunting snapshots of seemingly disparate objects.

          “Empty Planks” (Lesley Kimball) explores the question as to whether we shape our beliefs or our beliefs shape us, especially since our senses could be deceiving us, as in “Mistaken for Birds, This Love of the Body” (Jennifer Givhan).

          In “Find the Object” (Sean Lause), Aunt Sybil says, “Truth is a thousand lies.” Does this apply to “The Truth about Fire” (Pamela L. Taylor), which casts a different light to the story about the sky and why birds don’t trust it? Another retelling is “I’ll Explain the Breadcrumbs Later” (Meg Cowen), which is an eerie, modern-day version of Hansel and Gretel.

          Last but not least, “Ice” (Michael Johnson) is liable to make a hockey fan out of anyone with “the desire / to burn the world down with skates.”

          I hope you enjoy reading these poems as much I did. As always, the process of choosing only twelve out of hundreds was not easy, and I’d like to thank everyone who sent in his or her work. Keep writing! And please submit to Pedestal again when we reopen to submissions.

With best wishes for the holidays and 2013—

Arlene Ang

December 2012