Editor’s Note

Ashley Renselaer, Founder & Editor-in-Chief

Dear Readers, 

Fall is upon us.  With schools and much of the rest of the country reopening in the shadow of the Delta-variant, normalcy is still that ever-elusive sweet fruit we have been dreaming to grasp and finally taste again; almost within reach and yet so unattainable.   Moreover, eighteen months into a global pandemic, our world seems to be divided more than ever; split and conflicted; defined by contradictory narratives, as we continue to negotiate our path through this seemingly never-opening maze.  The poems and prose in our Words & Whispers Issue 05 give us a compass to where we can reconcile the two opposing edges of the world, finding comfort in old, familiar tunes and new, inspiring passions. 

With stunning imagery, Eric Stone’s poem “Thanatophobia” captures the complexity and beauty of our contradictory world powerfully: “Mayflies live one day, mating / in flitting patties. Dying, / they shower rivers without hope / of paradise, or lust for remembrance. / God is fleshy as mint leaves, the fissured moons /of bread rolls. The world is enough for love.”  In Lisa Trudeau’s poem “Stormy Afternoon at the Municipal Airport”, we find most evocative symbolism at work, contemplating one’s place in that liminal interval between now and after: “I will stay here as long as it lasts, tuned to the wind’s frequencies, watch/the sopping air wring itself again and again, feel the truck rock, unsoothed,/refigure my psyche to fit this space, remember it’s just another storm”.  Mallory Everhart’s poem, “mindfulness is a well-placed comma splice” pulses with energy, displaying the beautiful interplay of poetic form and content.

Elsewhere in the issue, the familial becomes front and center, as Toti O’Brien’s searing, unflinching poem “Mother” delivers the following lines: “How the spires of your mind / those pointy needles and thorns / vanished beyond clouds or else /crashed silently to the ground/flattened like cards and what / remained, only, was a flake / spreading like a flood, green /like moss, green like mucus”, while Maria S. Nitsolas story “Happy Mabel’s Day” offers a striking portrait of a mother that will surprise and linger with you.

In these times of longing nostalgically for a return to “normal”, we might have just found the key to reconciliation and unity; the power of imagination; that measure of tenderness and grace; that raw poem; that gripping story – you can find them all in our Issue 05. Enjoy!

Humbly,

Ashley Renselaer
Founder & Editor-in-Chief
Words & Whispers Literary Journal