As spring turns to summer for the old, the young, the jobless, those with jobs, and the struggling majority of us, these have been mean times. Poems in this issue describe the pride we take in our work as well as the terrifying insecurity and degradation that haunts wage labor.
With spring comes Worker's Memorial Day. We are always conscious of the inherent danger of the workplace and remember those lost or injured. Most of us know someone injured on the job if it isn't ourselves. Poems by Lyle Estill, John Zedolik and Ada Negri, as translated by Thomas Feeney, describe workplace injuries. We also have in this collection, poems of resistance to the workplace threats of harm and to the unlivable pay and limits placed by government assistance that impact our health, our lives beyond the workplace, and our chances of being injured on the job. And now, as Mary Franke's poem "May Day 2023" informs us, child labor is back.
Though we are not a "prison magazine" we understand that the vast majority of people incarcerated in our brutal prison system are working class and, that beyond neglect and mistreatment, they are also used as slave labor. When a person is imprisoned, entire families are injured as well. We are glad to publish some of the poems and prose we receive from inside the penal system and for the writers to know they are alive and heard in the world beyond the walls and towers.
Interest rates, utilities, groceries, rents and the general cost of living remain artificially high, pushed by price gouging now labeled "greedflation." As billions of dollars continue to flow to the Pentagon and arms industries, assistance for families, food stamps, and Medicare are being cut and we are left to struggle for basics. As a poem by Cathy Porter reminds us, many are forced to choose between food and medicines.
Our staff of hard-hit retirees is no exception and has been further impacted by a recent freak storm which damaged our home and office. The unfolding climate catastrphe increasingly threatens our overstrained lives and scarce shelter. If that isn't bad enough, our printer died halfway through doing this issue. Thanks to your support, it was replaced with a new one.
We are in hard times but we have not given up as a journal or as a class. From escalating labor and civil rights struggles to the fight against gender bigotry and climate destructon we continue to fight for our lives against the most reactionary political representatives of the corporatocacy. We fight those who want to kill nutritional assistance, even for children, to cut medical access and to de-fund our hard-earned Social Security upon which the elderly and infirm depend.
As the ecocidal insanity of our ruling class advances us daily toward the twin catastrophes of climate collapse and nuclear war, our only chance is to unite beyond cultivated partisan divisions, ethnic and gender identities, and misbegotten natonalisms for our own common survival. In this regard and in light of our seasonal war-revering holidays, we must replace the obsolete idea of "patriotism" or loyalty to our country, with the planetary consciousness of Matriotism, or loyalty to our earth mother. This requires understanding how interdependent all life on our world is, how inseparable our fate, and how threatened we are by capitalism and competitive nation-state gangsterism.
In our final poem in this collection, Marge Piercy writes, "and so we're changing it almost to something better." As our struggle continues we are grateful for the support which has kept us in print."
