Ken Waldman & Rachel White, Co-Editors​​
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KEN WALDMAN has drawn on 39 years as an Alaska resident to produce poems, stories, and fiddle tunes that combine into a performance uniquely his. www.kenwaldman.com and www.trumpsonnets.com
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RACHEL WHITE makes poems to praise the mystery of creation. Her poetry has appeared in journals, anthologies, on the radio and in the liner notes of a classical pianist's album. rachelwhitepoetry.org
Wherever you go, there you are.​
~(Misattributed to) Confucius ​​
Welcome to THE NOMAD!
​I bumped into Ken Waldman, “Alaska’s Fiddling Poet” in 2021 at a reading by Michael Branch in Boulder, Utah where Ken handed me a card printed with his “New Orleans Villanelle,” a poem I was astonished to learn had never found its place in a literary magazine. We wondered what other treasures might be out there, perhaps not entirely in step with trends of the moment but in conversation with a larger tradition.
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We invited writers we knew to send us a pair of their favorite pieces, one published and one unpublished, and we thank them wholeheartedly for supporting our endeavor to create a center of community around what can be conveyed through words.
Our title, THE NOMAD is a nod to Ken, who has lived life more or less on the road since 2001, and to the avant-garde Beat Generation magazine, Nomad, published from 1959 to 1962. In a time of accelerating change, it is a title with increasing resonance. Published in the Mountain West, we envision a space that both embraces and transcends geography.
Writing is a special kind of reading, and we hope that these pieces that hold significance for the generous authors featured in the first issue of THE NOMAD will inspire you to engage with what matters most. We would be honored to receive your poetry, prose, book reviews, letters, and essays - please find more information under the SUBMIT tab, above. Write us at nomadlitmag at gmail dot com. And coming in October, the annual print edition!
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​~Rachel​
... a movement towards movement, towards action, towards transport which drives through all the American arts, but especially through American poetry and painting, although it's very much there in jazz; at the same time, there is a counter-longing against this sense of transport and movement, for something quiet, for something still, for an imperishable moment that halts time ...
~Poet Edward Hirsch at the Art Institute of Chicago opening of American Perspectives, 2007.
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