Issue No. 5, 2011-12. Editor’s Notes

This issue of West 10th, the fifth issue, is unlike any other. The fourth issue was also unlike any other. Just to finish taking the wind out of these statements, the third one was, too. The point, here, is that West 10th is not a magazine that can plant a flag in its unmoving aesthetic and proclaim that aesthetic determined: the magazine metamorphoses each year as it is run through the filter of a different board and a different editor. 

I could draw a parallel between our magazine and the American literary establishment, saying that, just as our aesthetic changes in tandem with the people determining it, so does the prevailing notion of what’s good change as the voices of different readers, writers, and critics emerge and go out of fashion. I could use words like “synecdochic” to suggest that our magazine is literature in miniature. What I’ll say instead is that the selection you see in this issue represents a tiny fraction of what undergraduate students in and out of the NYU Creative Writing Program are creating. And rather than saying that this tiny fraction is the best fraction, the most talented fraction, the fraction voted Most Likely to Succeed, I’m going to say something I can actually get behind: these are the pieces we keep wanting to read, the ones that made the majority of us sit up a little straighter in our seats and occasionally say something like, “Hot damn!” We tried to make this process as objective as possible, eventually coming to realize that objectivity is just being honest about what gets you and figuring out how to verbalize why. 

If we’ve done our job—and I think we have—the average of our own values will match up well with the average of yours. If the writers represented here have done their job—and I know they have—you won’t be thinking too hard about what your own aesthetic values are. I hope you enjoy this issue as much as I have. 

Before I shut up and let you read, I want to thank the people who helped with the hard part: Laura Stephenson, this year’s Managing Editor, for making the magazine run and keeping me from forgetting what I was supposed to be doing; the poetry, prose, and community boards for being soul and body at once, and for reliably turning hard work into a party; all who submitted, published or not; Joanna Yas for taking over as our staff advisor; and Jessica Flynn for getting this year launched. I also want to thank Michael Dickman for giving us his outstanding poem, Meghan O’Rourke for answering our questions, and Matthew Rohrer and Darin Strauss for their invaluable advice and for putting us in contact with our guests. And last, Dean Thomas J. Carew for running the College of Arts and Science. 

I’m honored to present you with our fifth issue. Enjoy it. 

Phillip Polefrone

Masthead

COMMUNITY BOARD

Zonia Ali
Sarah Buchanan
Samuel Hernandez
Kristine Swartz
Stela Xhiku

EXECUTIVE EDITORS

Matthew Rohrer
Darin Strauss

STAFF ADVISOR

Joanna Yas