Crescendo City

In the summer of 2011 we launched Crescendo City: A Community of Writers. A print publication in a digital age, a virtual group in a physical place, and a literary magazine.

Letter from the Editor

Simonedes of Ancient Greece began defining what is now called the art of memory, a technique used to memorize long narratives and present them with cutting accuracy. An art almost as precise and necessary as that of the griots of West Africa: presenting stories that had no distinction between poetry and history and that carried everything vital about an individual’s and a group’s identity.

In the art of memory, every poem needed to be housed in a place; and objects within that place reminded the storyteller of important words or parts of the story. Then retelling became simple: take a mental walk around the block, or the house, or the neighborhood, and let the story tell itself.

Zora Neale Hurston said “There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside you.” This first issue of Crescendo City brings a unique group of writers to the table, lets them express what might otherwise be left untold.

Harlem is more than just a neighborhood to more than just the people who live here. It represents an art, a cradle of artistic expression, a place where poets and writers continue to recall the dead and continue to give birth to new stories.

-Katherine Sanders