Finally, the seventh issue of Divan, Australia’s first online all-Australian poetry journal, is before you. Many apologies for this delay, which has been caused by technology challenges and changes to the availability.of personnel.  Please be assured that the Divan team is implementing new processes so future issues will not experience such delays again.

Now for the issue itself. From almost 400 poems submitted for our consideration by over 100 poets, we selected 76 of them. Within the pages of this journal you will find poems dealing with man’s interactions with nature and nature’s interactions with man; poems exploring and expressing creativity in jazz, in art and, of course, in poetry itself; poems dealing with loss of self and the loss of others; poems examining history, science and the transcendental; poems using traditional forms, free verse, and combinations of the two. We hope you will enjoy and appreciate the many themes and devices these contemporary Australian poets have developed in their ongoing encounters with the inner and outer worlds of their existence.

Of the 52 poets whose work is presented here, 24 participated in our ‘Marginalia’ activity, a chance for the poet to share with the reader the genesis of one of his or her poems. We feel such accounts will provide you with an insight into the creative process and so enrich your understanding of their poetic endeavours and the poems themselves.

According to Peter Porter, ‘Poetry is either language lit up by life or life lit up by language’. Within Divan 7 you will find many examples of such poetry, written by poets whose lives have been lit up by life and by language. We feel sure that when you open yourself to their poems, your lives will also be lit up.

Jump in and explore.

Earl Livings                   Jessica Alice
Editor                           Assistant Editor