Spring 2022 Editorial

For many decades our country has been engaged in one war or another to feed our weapons-based economy and to expand U.S. corporate hegemony. We have trained foreign nationals, along with our own soldiers, in torture and murder methods. They have perpetrated terrible violence around the world. The violence we do elsewhere, the culture of violence we are sold, and the minds scarred by it have come home with a vengeance.

As spring turns to summer this collection looks back on a season of violence. Our country continues to supply weapons of war to Ukraine and to fund the Pentagon at record levels even as funding for citizen needs is challenged as too costly. Yet we are less safe. Medical care remains unaffordable for many. Prices are rising and mass shootings have become a near daily event.

As working people, we continue to suffer the daunting violence of poverty, terror of landlords, bill collectors, and the added trauma of rising prices on rent, groceries and essentials. We, whose hands make and repair the physical world, we who create the wealth we rarely see have little or no representation or voice in decisions that affect our daily lives. This reality fosters disempowering cynicism as well as anger often twisted against our real interests by corporate politicians and media.

With our ability to live increasingly threatened by the realities of climate collapse and economic hardship made worse by corruption and war, a rise in citizen activism is upon us. Progressive forces like the Poor People's Campaign, organized labor, women's rights, climate action groups and demands for sane gun control are growing -- as are the extreme-right forces of violent reaction.

Poems in this collection focus on poverty, labor struggles, and on the devaluing of, and impact on, children in our corrupt corporate oligarchy. Children suffer inordinately from the criminal irresponsibility of political opportunism and arrogant class disregard. Poems like "Torta" by Hector Jimenez, "The Milk of Dreams" by Mary Franke, and "Children of the Estate" by Paul Barron speak of the hunger and abuse children experience.

Violence driven by bigotry is a continuing foundational American reality as described in "American Pestilence" by Stewart Acuff and "Narrow was the Way" by Marge Piercy. The scapegoating and targeting of people based on perceived differences is meant to divide us, diverting the focus of our frustration and rage from those who perpetrate vicious, unrelenting injustice upon us to our class brothers and sisters. Added to the targets of hate are Trans and gender non-binary people. As a class, our struggle demands transcending such prejudices and creating our own justice rooted in our common issues and interests.

Working class literature exists to make us more aware of the commonality or our shared class experience and to strengthen the social solidarity we need to have a voice and to create authentic democracy. We are happy to be able to present fresh voices in this issue and hope to see the continuing growth of our readership. We are deeply grateful for the support of the community of readers and contributors which has allowed us to continue publishing. Together, out of our unique genius and the fruits of our connected experience, we can inspire the construction of a just and livable future that is ours.