Creating Mantis kept me in grad school. I didn’t realize until I proposed the idea, and over a dozen colleagues immediately signed on to the cause, what a deep thirst I and so many of my fellow graduate students had for strengthening our creative community and for making something tangible and immediate—at least, something more tangible and immediate than a dissertation. Also, since my dissertation centered on novels and narrative, Mantis allowed me to continue to revel in the world of poetry, which was the world that had gotten me to graduate school in the frst place. With Mantis, a group of budding scholars also got to be creators: we were able to transform (conceptually, and also literally, painstakingly, on the computer) the twisting and diverse words and thoughts of amazing poets and translators and critics into a beautiful, dynamic thing. As our mission statement declared, “Mantis celebrates the overlapping and merging practices within the world of poetry”—practices among which we included “the production and performance of poetry, the translation of poetry, the reading of poetry, the publication of poetry, and critical engagement with poetry.”

Such merging and overlapping practices are encapsulated in the name we chose (fnally, after months of equal parts frustrating and fun debate) for our little journal: Mantis is named after Louis Zukofsky’s sestina “‘Mantis’” and its companion poem “‘Mantis,’ An Interpretation,” in which Zukofsky translates the object of “‘Mantis’” into another poem that is also an interpretation. Together the poems investigate the inextricability between form and thought, between interpretation and creation. The selections I have chosen to reprint from the first two issues of Mantis also reflect this inextricability. Zoë Anglesey’s “Alive is Everything” and “Exile Time,” a translation of Alexis R. D. Romay’s “Tiempo de Exilio” from Mantis 1: Poetry and Community, showcase the poet as translator and interpreter. June Jordan’s “A Far Stretch Well Worth the Effort” from Mantis 2: Poetry and Translation is a critical reflection on a poetic form in translation that also offers two poems, each communally generated in different ways. I am so grateful for these contributions (and for so many others—it was very hard to choose just a few!), and also for the original community that envisioned and created Mantis, and for the current community fostering it and carrying it forward.

Sara’s Selections:

Zoë Anglesey - Alive is Everything

Alexis R.D. Romay (translated by Zoë Anglesey) - Tiempo de Exilio

June Jordan - A Far Stretch Well Worth the Effort