phati'tude Literary Magazine: Multiculturalism: In Search of a New Perspective (Vol 2, No. 1)

phati'tude Literary Magazine is a quarterly publication that publishes poetry, fiction and essays written by both emerging and established writers of diverse origins whose works exhibit social, political and cultural awareness. Published by the Intercultural Alliance of Artists & Scholars, Inc. (IAAS) a NY-based nonprofit organization. Our Spring 2010 issue, "Multiculturalism: In Search of a New Perspective" features essays by Marie Arana, David Zinser, Marc Crane and David M. Wulf; interviews on Lawson Fusao Inada and Tara Betts, and A. Robert Lee. Featuring poets from the U.S., Canada, England, Australia, New Zealand, Scotland, Guam, Japan, the Philippines and Israel. REVIEW: The Spring 2010 issue of phati'tude is a retrospective of multiculturalism as it has developed over the past 30 years. There are interviews with veterans of the curriculum wars of the '80s and '90s. Lawson Fusao Inada, a Japanese-American writer and educator, has been involved with the West Coast poetry scene since the 1960s. A. Robert Lee is a British Professor of American Literature, has been writing about multiculturalism since the 1980s. For Inada and Lee, multiculturalism is a community with a common set of reference points: Ishmael Reed and Maxine Hong Kingston, to name only two. A lively and interesting literary community has always been one of the prime attractions of multiculturalism. While the phati'tude editors are open to contributions in all literary forms, poetry dominates the Spring issue. There's a fine poem from Heid Erdrich, the sister of poet and novelist Louise Erdrich, and a pair of contributions from Lawson Fusao Inada. Jaime "Shaggy" Flores' "Letter of the Day" is impassioned, like a lot of the work in the issue, and also inventive. Also not to be missed is Gabrielle David's sensitive and learned reviews of poetry collections. . . . Hopefully, future issues of phati'tude will address the next challenges of the great American experiment in a pluralistic society. Multiculturalism is an endless conversation, and that conversation is as important now as it has ever been. Walter Benjamin, One Way Street (http://onewaystreet.typepad.com/one_way_street/2010/11/phatitude-multiculturalism-in-the-21st-century.html)