Welcome from the Editor

Thank you for visiting the Luna blog. I want to thank Nate Slawson and Alex Lemon for their hard work in relaunching the magazine and creating this wonderful and important site. I founded Luna ten years ago at the University of Illinois in Chicago. The first issue came back from the printers as I was moving to Minneapolis to teach in the MFA Creative Writing Program at the University of Minnesota. As I read the first issue and found myself in a new location, I knew my committment to publishing poetry from all over the U.S., along with translations from all over the world, was about to be strengthened. Over the last nine years of being in Minnesota, I have been fortunate to receive excellent poems and translations, along with major support from the University of Minnestoa. I thank them for office space and staff assistance, though the brief intermission between issues six and seven pointed to a temporary lack of funds for printing. On the tenth anniverary of the magazine, I am proud and pleased to say that Luna is back in business and will continue to publish in a smaller format. Our committment to fine poetry and translations is stronger than ever because, in these times of political darkness and a literary atmosphere where too many poets are constantly jockeying for position, it is good to find honest people who are committed to working on a fine publication. It comes down to being professional editors, to loving poetry, and for making the efforts to find the best possible work out there. This means not fitting into any one "school of poetry" or promoting one group over another. I look forward to the further development of this site and to future issues of Luna that will truly represent our efforts to bring you a wide panorama of fine poets, young and old and poems that transcend boundaries to allow the language to speak for itself.

Ray Gonzalez
Editor
Luna