Drawing on Filipino horror and mythology, Estacion turns to monsters, ghosts, and beasts to navigate her personal pain and grief. Mirroring the loss of her own reproductive organs, she weaves in supernatural imagery of The White Lady, who weeps over the “dead uterus lying sadly on a / pillow looking very much like / the burnt pork belly at breakfast no one wants to touch.”
In the six-page preface, Principe takes great care to write that her book is not: an apology for suicide, a comprehensive review of suicide, a history of suicide, an argument for or against suicide, judgment, or a response to suicide that is without love.
Grace Lau’s debut poetry collection, The Language We Were Never Taught to Speak is a love letter to the narrator’s younger self. Throughout the book, learning the language of care is embedded in the literal act of learning a second language as immigrant children.
full of saskatoon berries sage-smoke & yarrow wild columbine & aster
where the trees grow crooked
by swift-flowing rivers
& grassy hills where bu alo used to jump
In trying to find a common theme between all the pieces of this issue, I kept returning to the idea of what it means for us, as writers and artists, to pull at the threads of our identities and inventions in order to lay them on the page. Working alongside my thoughtful editorial team, this issue celebrates writers and artists whose work draws open language and guides us with care through the possibilities of storytelling.