Welcome to this, the sixth issue of The Copenhagen review. The issue stands firmly in the sign of the Russian poet Andrei Bely, a poet who wrote mostly novels. We bring two excerpts from his work, thanks to Richard Ramsbotham and Charlotte Douglas. The longer piece is an extract, with emendations, from a novel by Bely, never before put into English. The shorter contribution helps us understand something of this great writer's intentions.

And perhaps because Bely was, at heart, a poet, and because we regard him as the inspiring spirit of this issue, we have brought much poetry and very little prose. Norwegian Jon Fosse loves to fish but he is known to the world for his many dramas, his novels and not at all for his poetry. And yet there is a side of him that is only revealed there, in the sphere of condensed words we call verse. His poems are meditative, sparse and truthful. We bring five poems in both New-Norwegian (let us not get into an explanation of the language) and English.

Karsten Sand Iversen has contributed a concise description of some features of Jon Fosse's writing. Ever erudite and helpful, we thank him for his contribution. Romanian Carmen Firan has contributed a poem, written from her home in New York. We bring her own rendering of it in English with the careful assistance of her trusted colleague. From Germany, our neighbor to the south, we bring a poem in English and German by Silke Scheuermann who has distinguished herself as a poet but who has recently ventured into the thorny terrain of prose.

Also from Germany, Tom Schulz, whom we met in Berlin at a reading event sponsored by this magazine. We bring three of his poems in German.

Amy Trussell is an American poet well worth watching. We have accepted three of her no-nonsense poems for publication here. In English.

And we are happy to include a new poem by Ireland's Louise C. Callaghan who is an honored contributor to TCR.

Let us not forget Denmark and its wealth of lyric possibilities.

We are proud to bring three poems, in English and in Danish, by the distinguished poet, Jørgen Sonne, who at 85 is still insatiably curious about the things of this world. He is an inspiration to all wordsmiths of our day.

TCR is also honored to present to our readers of English, the gentle poet Knud Sørensen. He has contributed with a lovely poem we heard him read at Poesienshus (The House of Poetry) in Copenhagen. We bring the poem in both Engish and Danish.

From Sweden we include, in the guise of a kind of poetic review, excerpts from Anna Mattson's new book of poetry, Grånsglaset, but only in English. She has produced a book of immense courage.

Håkan Sandell has contributed a poem in Swedish.

We also present, for the first time, the work of Aleksandar Sajin, a writer of growing stature in Europe.

So that is what we have this time. A little jewel.

The next issue will be our threshold issue.

---THE EDITOR

thanks to Magnus Falko, Ursula Rheinhart-Döring, Chrstopher Sand-Iversen, ABR, for proofing in various languages and for other things as well.