I am typing this on a rare rainy day in Southern California, the first piece in a re-launched Curator, a magazine I worked on as poetry editor for many years, and a magazine I’ve enjoyed for many more. My wife and kids are away for the weekend, and I’m sitting at a table selected from West Elm, given to us by my father-in-law as a housewarming gift. On the opposite wall are three framed photographs by a former student, the designer Gaven Heim, black and white close ups of folded paper that look like minimalist paintings. The lines and curves and shadows, if expanded to, say, 8 X 10 feet, would fit nicely into a palely lit room at Dia Beacon. Beethoven’s 9th is on the turntable, an LP recently retrieved from a box in my dad’s garage that probably hadn’t been opened since 1962, when my parents moved from Annapolis to Orange County. The room’s colors—aqua, powder blue, yellow and white—might have been unconsciously chosen to reflect the Calder-inspired mobile I made for my wife a few Christmases ago. It hangs in the corner, by the open window, its blue and yellow leaves like paint swatches pinned to the wall and not removed after the walls took on their colors.

What I’m saying is: This room here is a curated space.

It’s a bunch of stuff arranged to reflect a point of view. What that point of view might be, I leave to you. (I hope it’s not insufferability.) The word itself—curate—has been overused, just as the word winsome has been among Christians, or impact, as a verb, among everybody. I confess that, as a title for this magazine, I never had a problem with it. But when someone—usually a writer or artist—talks about their work or interests as curated, it makes me cringe. People talk about their work as curated when what they probably mean is authored or made. In this usage, to curate means simply to shape something in the medium you’re working in. I guess you could say that the Japanese haiku masters “curated” in this way:

       A bucket of azaleas,
in its shadow
the woman tearing codfish.

Here, for Basho, the salient information is the bucket of flowers juxtaposed against the torn codfish: Look how life shows us beauty next to guts, all part of the pantomime! Other, richer readings can be made (I don’t want to bore you!), but to say these lines have been curated perhaps misperceives the earthy work of looking and choosing, within strict limitations, the right words to describe what one looks at. It would be closer to say that the editor, Robert Hass, who collected these poems, is the curator.

In other words, the author makes, and the curator takes the work and arranges it, pairs it, contextualizes it. I think of the Ethiopian in the chariot, reading the authored work, and asking Philip, who stands nearby, to interpret it. In this instance, Philip is like a curate, one who performs as an intermediary between the congregation and a theological conception of God. (We’ll read this scripture this week; we’ll pray this prayer; we’ll take communion; I’ll benedict you out the door, and, hey, we’ll see you all next week. Don’t forget to tithe!)

Maybe this argument is bunk. “All art is selective,” Flannery O’Connor reminds us, so maybe it’s ok to say your work is curated, even if by you. Maybe my cringing at the term (which happens less and less, as the term has lost some currency) has to do with the implication that art happens in a vacuum, in the mad genius of the individual. It’s a romantic notion I find odious because I used to want to live it. What has been lovely about The Curator in the past is that it hasn’t been romantic in this sense. Over the years, the publishers and editors—most recently Meaghan Ritchey and Adam Joyce—cultivated a community of generous writers, who, like curators, have said, “Look at this. It’s worth your time, if you can spare it.” To say such things means attending carefully to the things of this world. To be heard means using language that is clear and expressive and true—true in the sense that it, as much as is possible, meets the angles of the writer’s apprehended idea, like when a door hangs true in its frame.

We hope to carry on this good work. I told one former contributor that the relaunched Curator hopes to be an “island retreat” and a “blessing of curiosity” among this vast series of tubes we call the Internet. Her reply is worth quoting in full:

I’m all for community and love the evocative sense of “an island retreat from the sea of online information” and “the blessing of curiosity.” Is it possible to be online and still be an island retreat? Can a person savor the blessing of curiosity even within what may be a curse, the ubiquitous screens and all they contain?

I admit I had no good answer. However, this same correspondent wrote, about her understanding of what we’re trying to do,

I find it difficult to work without vision. My personal vision as an editor involves the singular reader. For an online publication, I imagine the reader catching a glimpse of something so good that he or she pauses. Strong, specific, clear writing makes a difference to that reader.

Amen, sister. We face desperate times. It may be a fool’s errand, but for now, we’ll try to make a tiny difference to those readers who visit The Curator. I’m sure our vision will evolve as we attempt to up our publication schedule (for now, look for new content on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays), pay our writers (a pittance, alas), raise funds and add features. Meaghan and Adam will remain in advisory roles, and the rest of us will aim to bring you work that, if nothing else, reflects a salutary perspective, and work that hangs true to its frame.