Volume 46

As a few of our readers might recall, I first took over as Managing Editor of The Worcester Review in 1985 and brought out Volume IX. Twenty-seven years later I stepped back to allow younger editors to chart and manage this Worcester literary treasure. But I have always kept an eye on its progress and when a crisis arose last year, there was no hesitation to jump back onboard to help keep this fifty-three-year-old ship seaworthy.

The crew who has signed on is incredible as well, a balance of youth and experience that is and will be an incalculable gift for the future. And here we are putting out to sea for the journal’s forty-sixth voyage. In it you will find fine poetry, fiction and an essay illuminating the fascinating story behind one of Worcester’s still hidden gems: Poet Hill. Consider this the preface to Volume 47’s feature by Editor Beth Sweeney shedding literary light on Worcester’s streets and corners.

Let me speak a bit more about this remarkable crew without which The Worcester Review might still be in mothballs: Emma Couillard and Rob Baker signed on as Assistant Managing Editors, and have quickly learned the ropes and make final decisions on deadlocked submissions. They will take over the wheel next year so I might again enjoy my rocking chair. If all goes well, they will guide The Worcester Review for at least an additional four years. Editor Pamela Gemme of Polar Park Baseball Poetry fame also reads submissions and, along with Fulfillment Editor Robert Steele (the editor who thirty years ago wrote the grant that permitted TWR to build an endowment to keep it afloat) fill out the management team.

Finally we have an excellent jury crew of wide-ranging poets and writers who work in teams to read every submission: Pamela Gemme, Tianli Kilpatrick, Rachel Lloyd, Diane Mulligan, Eve Rifkah, Karen Sharpe, Em Judkins, and Linda Warren.

We believe all of you will find good sailing somewhere among the one-hundred and twenty plus pages of this year’s edition. Enjoy!

—Rodger Martin, Managing Editor