Lynne Knight: “I was a new mother fifty years ago, a hippie in Toronto, and reflecting back, I’m struck by how much of the optimism and hope we felt then has been darkened or eclipsed today. I continue to believe we can achieve things across or despite borders—I’m sure many of the NASA scientists who worked on the Apollo mission were immigrants! It’s heartbreaking to see the frenzy being whipped up against ‘the other’ when we’re all here together on the same planet, subject to the moon’s gravitational pull.” (web)
Julian Randall: “In the aftermath of several police shootings recently I have found that the rhetoric surrounding discussions of the murder and by extension the disappearance of Black people to be clouded by discussions as to whether ‘Blue Lives Matter.’ Coupled with that for all of July has been speculation about whether prominent Bisexual singer Frank Ocean will release his much anticipated second album. As a result I have been thinking a lot about the visibility of Queerness and Blackness in our grand national conversation as both major political parties seek to curry favor by proving themselves worthy to oversee the continued disappearance and genocide of Black folk. In Frank Ocean’s virtual absence there has been rampant speculation that Frank may be dead in an almost Schrödinger’s cat like level of speculation. I wonder what happens to a Black Bisexual body like my own if no one can see it. It is these themes that are on my mind as another July passes covered in smoke and broken promises.” (website)
Peter Marcus: “Living is New York and my feelings about my life here are fraught with contradiction. This city that continues to energize and exhaust, exhilarate and fatigue, as it hums, dances, burns and crashes on its streets and behind myriad closed doors. New York, like the universe itself, seems ever expanding in its breadth, an endlessly unfolding map that I purposefully or aimlessly, addictively wander. Likewise, I often experience New York as a fathomless well in whose depths I’ve been fortunate to draw from and been sustained by, especially in periods of loneliness, depression or loss. Over the years, I’ve found innumerable niches and nooks inside the maelstrom of city life, spaces where I can commiserate within, places of refuge and solace: in Central Park, on the Highline, amidst empty church pews, in oft-empty side rooms of grand museums, on various wooden stools inside day-dark bars. There is too much in this city that I rail and rage against, and too much that I equally adore and celebrate. New York is excessive in both the wonderful and repugnant, as it compels and repels me, often within a single day, sometimes within single hour. The city figures as both central character and backdrop in many of the poems I’ve written over the twenty years that I’ve lived here. And much like the speed and drive of the poem in this issue, on many a day, the city leaves me, for the worse or the better—breathless.”
Molly Peacock: “This poem takes its imagery from my continual border crossings from my home in Toronto to my former home, New York City. I lead a double life, in both literary and literal senses. Same language. Two entirely different cultures! The inter relationship constitutes an ongoing Compare/Contrast essay as I write.” (website)
David Kelly-Hedrick: “There are so many great poems out here and each one is like a transit pass for the soul, valid, permission given, full access granted, to roam. I like holding onto these scraps of paper and the movement given. I like being in the swirl of poetry.”