a note from the editor

As poets, we bear responsibility for the work we create. As an editor, I have a responsibility for the work that I choose to publish. As a general community of the arts, we all share a collective responsibility to strive ever to do better. (And they say the arts aren't important!) This being said, nature poetry in particular has a spotty past. For every Keats, there is a Pound.

For every poet who loves and respects nature for its beauty, power, and intrinsic value, there's a hateful person with a difficult life who channels their negative emotions into a hatred for the other. For this latter type, nature often represents a sort of idyllic past-the way things were "before", when men were men, when gender roles were clearly defined and enforced, when the racial hierarchy was unchallenged.

For these poets, who should be challenged when they are met, nature is a tool to spread hate. Their false image of a "natural order" which reinforces their bigoted worldviews is a grail which they seek, loudly and with much bravado, in order to normalize their hatred. And yet, for every Pound, there is a Keats. In the current sociopolitical landscape, at least in the western world, it is more important than ever for the Keatses to speak out. For centuries, nature has served as a source of inspiration for artists; now, the artists must defend nature. In defending nature from those who would mischaracterize it, we must also defend, support, and encourage those that the Pounds would like to denigrate.

Art will have power, regardless of our input. It is up to us to make sure that its power is directed toward the benefit of all humanity, and not toward the oppression of groups without social power. If you write, lend your voice to those whose voices, by dint of history or class, have been diminished or silenced. Help them be heard. And if you don't write, be sure to challenge poems which contain veiled or not-so-veiled bigotry. Challenge, too, the editors and publications who support the literature of bigotry.

In this effort, we won't always get it right-but the bigots will always get it wrong. We will survive this Winter, and emerge into Spring with a renewed sense of purpose. Until then, dear friends.

— Cory Willingham, Editor

A post-script from the Publisher:

I invite you to note the change of our tagline, live in this issue and reflected on the cover and throughout our webpage. We've gone from "poems of man and nature" to "poems of nature and humankind." We value the legacy we inherited when we re-started the magazine founded by Augie Derleth, but we don't think we're breaking faith with any important principle by updating our language. As a practical matter, there's no reason we need to be shackled to outdated language; and as a moral matter, we aren't interested in even incrementally contributing to the persistence of certain old and in many ways ugly attitudes about gender, sex, identity, and human worth. - ZWB

<< return to the Table of Contents for New Series #6: Winter 2018, Volume 3 Number 2