Editor's Note

Dear Reader,

Cover artist, Claire Bowen makes summer a little more bearable with the gentle colors in her graceful and captivating "Anemone Winter."

Like the poets in our Issue 60, cover artist Claire Bowen's work projects a new way of looking at common things. She skews the perspective and offers surprising juxtapositions. As a fine artist, art teacher, judge and freelance illustrator, she is educated at Maine College of Art, holds B.F.A. from The School of the Museum of Fine Arts associated with Tufts University and has pursued further studies from Massachusetts College of Art and The Cambridge Center for Adult Education.

Awarded first place by the Art League of Rhode Island, March 2011, "Anemone Winter" is one example of Bowen's combining layers of fabric, drawing, and paint to allow succinct results that mesh the use of collage, illustration and painting. Talent and artistic expression enter her paintings in various ways, just as they shape the effects in a poem. Bowen admits that her best work tends to result from the combination of being true to her perspective while considering constructive criticism from her colleagues. Sound familiar, anyone?

Vacations have the TCR staff scattered in all directions, but today we welcome home founder and editor-emeritus, Guy Shahar. Also back home today is poetry editor Christian Gullette after three months in Sweden. "Välkommen tillbaka." And "Welcome back" to you, too, to another issue of The Cortland Review. Nothing happens here without you.

Cheers,
Ginger Murchison
Editor