Foreword
by Thomas Horton
When I was working last year to put together Poets Collective’s sixth anthology, the world was a very different place than it is as I sit and edit the seventh.
I suppose there is no profound revelation in that statement, for time changes us and the world we live in, moment by moment, day by day. Time’s neverending advance makes pronouncements like my introduction seem banal most of the time.
However, at this moment—the first week of July 2020—I am struck by how abnormal this “new normal” is: Covid-19 with its quarantines, changes to social behavior, economic catastrophe, uncertainty, isolation and panic, has changed the world into something unrecognizable, almost overnight. Combined with social unrest, political turmoil, climate change and looming technological breakthroughs, we do indeed find ourselves at a pivotal moment in history.
Still, the building of history is a constant process. Certain events may mark history more deeply—disasters, accomplishments, cataclysms, deaths of famous people, discoveries and monumental changes bring a keen awareness of our place in history, and this moment appears to be dealing us consciousness of that fact in spades.
It is with that it mind that we’ve chosen Living in Historic Times as the theme and title of this volume of poetry. Every moment of our lives, no matter when we were born, has been historic in some regard. The poems included reflect simple life, the beauty of nature, the march of time, the changes of society, and the eternal truths of our existence as we experience them, here, and now.
It is my sincere hope that you enjoy the book.
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Poets: Susanne Donoghue, Mark Vincent, Michael Thomas, Sarah Van der Pas, Lily Colbin, Thomas Horton, Thain Bertin, Leo Durrant, David L. Hatton, Susan Chambers, Mary Boren, Nigel de Costa, Joshua Smith, JT Topazian, Jim Loft, Tony Longo, George Hloros, C. Walls, Evan Fowler
Since 2019, anthology submissions and most of the poems on the Poets Collective website come from Write, Share, Discuss, a small group of poets on allpoetry.com who are engaged with one another in genuine camaraderie and the thoughtful exchange of in-depth critique. Participants pay no fee for inclusion. All PoCo Publications projects are profanity-free.
