I will readily admit to my foolish hopefulness, so many months ago when we began to devise our plans for this 20th issue of Mantis, in thinking that I would perhaps be writing about renewal, about springtime, about newness. Thinking that I might invoke words like refreshed or revitalized, something a little more verdant in hue than the dreary greys that seem to color our collective confinement, the unsettled repetitiveness that gives us cause to question when, if ever?

Instead, as I confront the mundane reality of the crisis we now face—a crisis that has left its indelible mark on all generations in this present moment—I find myself thinking about that which persists. And perhaps more specifically, about persistence in the face of that which persists. As virus and global pandemic have taken their course, the world too has continued to exist in the way that it always has, or at least has tried, whether to our detriment or otherwise.

War, too, now rattles the Earth. Dragging its old death game to the front doorstep of our collective consciousness, though it has been out playing in the backyard our entire lives. It began long after I started to pen this introduction, but now adds layers upon layers to the word that still reverberates in my mind. What of persistence, in this moment?

Our hope, our dreams of freedom and justice will persist. So too the ills we wish away. And the question of what will remain. The renewal we yearn for is not guaranteed; things must change, and will not—a paradox.

We may, together, be tired. We may not see an other-side, or how to arrive at one. But we persevere. We do. In the face of loss and exhaustion, we create. Poetry persists. Translation continues to connect across languages. Art continues to confront that which divides, that which is unjust. Continues to fill us with wonder, and sustenance; poetry a shared language, ever-translatable.

I am always grateful for poetry and the communities it calls alive. It is our scream and our whisper. A quiet space to breathe in. A departure and homecoming. Something to pass the time, to inhabit, to lose ourselves in. An old friend.

To create a book is an act of love. To send it into the world, a lifeline.

On the occasion of the 20th issue of this annual publication, it strikes me as simultaneously remarkable that our small print journal has survived the test of over two decades and also entirely unsurprising that graduate students at Stanford, all poets and translators and critics in our own right, have shared an immense passion for poetry and translation that manifests with each new issue.

It seems only natural, at this juncture, to look back. And so as we forge a path forward to the next decade of Mantis, we call upon the voices of our previous editors, to share their reflections on their time as editors of Mantis and selections from issues past. After reaching out to so many of our previous collaborators and co-conspirators, the delighted response I received was nothing short of invigorating (“Yes, I have written poems about editing Mantis,” Doug Kerr wrote back to me). This is an institution that lives on in the hearts of those who have built it, a community that continues to invest in the vital work of poets and translators, bringing new work into a world that desperately needs it, and always will.

Admittedly, I knew very little about the origins of Mantis before embarking on this reflection project. But I quickly stumbled upon an old Stanford News article from 2002 which began:

“The battle of diverse thoughts -- / The actual twisting / Of many and diverse thoughts. / What form should that take?”

A good answer would be “Mantis.” Although the poet Louis Zukofsky had something more specific in mind -- the sestina -- when he wrote these lines, it’s hard to imagine he wouldn’t approve of the recently established Stanford poetry journal inspired by his famously interconnected poems, “Mantis” and “‘Mantis,’ An Interpretation.”

While I won’t spoil founding editor Sara Hackenberg’s lovely reflection on how the title decision played out in the annals of Mantis history, I will say that so much Zukofsky’s exquisite pairing of poem and interpretive response—itself a poem, inextricable from its referent—cuts to the core of what we at Mantis have done for over twenty years, every issue turning a critical eye toward the place of poetry within the world as it happens, the manifold slippages from and between poem, translation, interpretation.

We have some great things in store for Mantis. We are excited to announce the launch of our new website (mantis.stanford.edu), which will house digital editions of all our future issues, and to debut our new logo, which adorns the cover of this volume. For our part, however some things will never change. We remain dedicated to print publishing and will continue to deliver a caringly curated book into the hands of readers around the globe, while our web presence will simultaneously make the poetry we publish accessible to a wider audience and easier to share. Our commitment to craft, and to seeking out poems that delight and inspire and perplex, is unwavering. Certainly, our twentieth issue is a testament to this resolve—featuring new work in English by fifteen poets and a stellar lineup of translations spanning ten languages and centuries of literary production worldwide. And not to be outdone, the work of Kevin Bennett, which punctuates this issue, is one of the most outstanding collections of poems we have ever published.

Though it may be all we can do to leave some of the trials of the recent years behind, we offer you this act of remembrance, and dedicate Mantis 20 to persistence. Ours. Poetry’s. The world’s, maybe. In hope of another tomorrow. With the hope that these words, our voices, may bring us together. That we find renewal in new words and thoughts that twist in our minds, moving us. That we may shed our tired husks. That we, (as) the mantis, “can start/ History (etc.)” again, or still.