Dear Readers,
Poets are dangerous. I never set out to make a poetical magazine, anything with a kind of bent. But given that we are about shelter, it became political. Who deserves to be safe? Who deserves to be saved?
Poets are dangerous. Our purpose is to witness, to record, to legally observe. We make inventories for small losses.
Poets are dangerous. We see how it all connects. Poets are dangerous, and I’m tired. The work continues, awful and rarely cheerful.
And yet—the spiders are making their webs. Icarus shows us how to fly. We hatch escape plans, metaphor by swinging metaphor.
It’s cold comfort in this world of ours. I’m tired. A few years ago, I visited Elizabeth Bishop’s grave. Previous visitors left stones. I learned later this is to say “You are not forgotten.” I thought it meant, like gentle graffiti, “I was here.”
Could there be a poem where those mean the same thing? Maybe all the poems in this issue were chosen for that reason, because that is what they are saying.
You are not forgotten.
I was here.
Best,
Nadia Arioli
For Renee Nicole Good, poet
