The Island

AFTER two years and six issues, The Island has entered a new phase in establishing itself as a noteworthy literary publication. Issue number seven is the first by a staff which includes none of the magazine's originators. Now being circulated, it features a splendid interview with splendid Jorge Luis Borges and 14 competent poems by eight contributors--though the quality may not justify the fact that this is the first issue since May.

The spartan format (29 pages mimeographed on one side and stapled together by hand) derives from the fresh and deliberate lack of pretense which has become The Island's trademark. This makes it an appropriate outlet for its material: "It allows us to print things which might not be perfect, but which ought to be read," as one of the three editors explains.

The strength of this and every issue--except the fifth, which relied on a short story--has been a significant interview with a prominent writer (such as W. H. Auden or John Barth). Carter Wilson's superbly conducted discussion with Borges is perhaps the most enlightening piece published about the Argentine fantast.

"Borges and Us" provides an audience just beginning to appreciate Borges' inventive "fictions" and enchanting Norton lectures with an introduction to the remarkable personality behind the magic. Wilson's technique is to remain unobtrusive, to give Borges free rein. The two quickly establish a lively, productive rapport (Wilson: "My next question may be irrelevant." Borges: "I enjoy irrelevant questions.... The answers are irrelevant, so the questions have to be irrelevant also.")

BUT the questions are imaginative and provoking: Twice Borges exclaims, "I never thought of that" (a remarkable reaction from a man who seems to have thought of more than anyone else) and goes on to speculate on why verse is somehow sadder than a prose treatment of the same subject, and on what the opposite of a labyrinth (Borges' central metaphor) is. "Borges and Us" is a marked improvement over the days when Island editors asked Mary Poppins' creator, in issue number two, "First of all, Miss Travers, where were you born?"

If the interview is the heart of every Island, the editors use it to attract readers whom they then expose to a selection of good verse.

Heather McHugh's delicate craftsmanship allows her to write about a girl reflecting, in bed in winter, without degenerating to the Cliffie poem genre which leaves that undergraduate aftertaste to most college literary magazines. David Rubenstein successfully conceives a "Buddhist in a Ford," and John Black '38 interweaves his images into a haunting organic whole.

Jamie Rosenthal's three poems effectively balance a somewhat playful surface tone against a subtle, controlled earnestness. Island co-founder John Plotz' "Clyde on Time" is interesting stylistically if not thematically, while Inez Hedges' clarity in "Crush" suffers only slightly from an overdose of subjectivity.

Though on page 29, The Island apologizes for increasing its price from 15 cents, even at a quarter it's probably the only bargain in the Square.