I met Kwame Dawes, the editor of Lincoln, Nebraska-based journal Prairie Schooner, at the Struga Poetry Evenings in Macedonia in 2011. Following the festival, Kwame invited me, as the editor of Cordite Poetry Review, to collaborate on a joint issue, to be published online.
Our collaboration became the first of what would become known as Fusion, a new online series features collaborations between Prairie Schooner and interesting, innovative online literary entities from around the world that seek to create dynamic fusions in literature and art.
The Cordite–Prairie Schooner Fusion, with the theme of ‘Work’, featured poems from Cordite Poetry Review by Tom Clark, Lorin Ford, Derek Motion, Brendan Ryan, Adrian Wiggins, Jennifer Compton, Ivy Alvarez, Barbara De Franceschi, Liam Ferney, Peter Coghill, M. F. McAuliffe, Benito Di Fonzo, Esther Johnson, Geoff Page, Emily Stewart and Margaret Owen Ruckert, plus audio poems by Sean M. Whelan & the Interim Lovers, Maxine Beneba Clarke, komninos zervos and Benito Di Fonzo.
It also featured poems from Prairie Schooner by Hedi Kaddour (translated by Marilyn Hacker), R. F. McEwan, Ander Monson, Linda McCarriston, Toi Derricotte, Marvin Bell, Marcella Pixley, Ted Kooser, Moira Lineham, Sandy Solomon, Jenny Factor, John Engman, Gary Fincke, Dannye Romine Powell, John Canaday, James Cihlar, Nance Van Winckel, Floyd Skloot and Roy Scheele.
Illustrations were provided by Michelle Ussher and Watie White.
In addition, the feature included interviews with Derek Motion, Jennifer Compton and Nance Van Winckel, plus eight more interviews on the Cordite site.
