A History of Letters: An Introduction to the Issue

A History of Letters: An Introduction to the Issue Meg Sparling In 1983, Red Cedar Reviewpublished its twentieth-anniversary issue, entided "An Accidentally AU-Women's (Where are all the good male writers?) Prize Winning Issue." The editors ofa review founded by Thomas McGuane, Jim Cash, and Walt Lockwood must have been struck by die irony. Now another twenty years have passed, and the gender pendulum has swung back toward the center. In addition to the winners of the Jim Cash Writing Contest for 2002, and exciting new pieces from up-and-coming writers, this issue contains a special retrospective of RCR alumni, including reprints oftwo Stuart Dybek prose poems, originally published in 1972; two new poems by Dan Gerber, whom RCRpublished in 1973; a poem byJudith Minty, who appeared in a 1975 issue; and from Diane Wakoski, MSU Poet in Residence and former RCR Faculty Advisor, a poem about moonflowers, the image of this issue, which appeared in her collection Argonaut Rose in 1998. Preparation for this fortieth-anniversary issue necessitated an archaeological dig ofsorts, through old letters and files. A frazzled staffmember, Scott Lamer, sorted and catalogued a fire-hazard-sized collection of back issues. This process became, as archaeological digs do, a revelation. I still remember the day former General Editor Doug Dowland and I joyfully discovered a single surviving copy ofan issue featuring an interview with Allen Ginsberg. This dig also resulted in a new wallpaper for the RCRoffice: old letters by the dozens, some complimenting an issue, some responding to the rejection ofa submission with frustration or outrage, even threats oflegal action. This forty-year correspondence is full of pride, passion, and vitality: energies at the very heart of contemporary literature. The history of Red Cedar Review, like its survival, is quite remarkable. It appears, with forty years' worth ofhindsight, that the sixties was an important decade for the MSU Department ofEnglish. In addition to the creation ofthe new department-funded literary journal, the undergraduate program enrolled many students who would go on to successful careers as writers: in addition to Cash, McGuane, and Lockwood there was Jim Harrison, and 2 MEG SPARLING Dan Gerber. The names ofwriters published in the Red CedarReviewin subsequent years can make you starry-eyed: Margaret Atwood, Pablo Neruda, Allen Ginsberg, W.S. Merwin, Stuart Dybek, William Stafford, Diane Wakoski, Charles Baxter, Judith Minty, Carolyn Forche, and many more. In preparing for this issue, I read through letters, memos, speeches, and press releases dating back to the founding ofthe journal. Though I had never seen this material before, some ofit was dishearteningly familiar. The problems RCR faced in 1963 and 1983 it faces in 2003. To reach its fortieth anniversary, RCRhas survived dry spells in which no issues were published, continuous underfunding (punctuated by reductions to no funding), and periods of apathy among the department, students, and even staff. Legend has it that co-founders McGuane, Cash, and Lockwood first called the journal Tarot, but decided the title seemed too esoteric. At times, RCR has been esoteric regardless. Navigating the journal's history, however, I began to see RCRs surroundings as an ecosystem, in which difficulties function as environmental conditions : conditions that may provide the necessary tension for the journal's vitality, its forwardness, its evolution. I would like to believe that Red Cedar Review has survived forty years of poverty amid rich poetry and prose because it is fundamental to the university and the liberal arts experience of its students. How a literary review digs a fundamental experience out ofthe potential apathy within a megaversity is not easily explained. But this Red Cedar Review does, and so it lives on. Beginning with the issue you hold in your hand, Red Cedar Review has a new look, made possible by our alliance with Michigan State University Press. Much else remains the same. As it moves toward its sixtieth-anniversary issue, and its eightieth, RCRwill continue to publish high-quality literature . It will continue to receive letters and submissions from all over the world. It will continue to be edited in the dark basement ofMorrill Hall by passionate undergraduates who read through manuscripts that are submitted , pounds upon pounds ofpoetry and...