Fall 2023 Editorial

This issue emerges in maddening times. As I write this, the Israeli slaughter of Palestinians, triggered by a brutal uprising of oppressed desperation, continues in Gaza as well as in the occupied West Bank with avid support and weapons supplied by our country's leaders. Tens of thousands, mostly women and children, are already dead with civilian homes, unembedded journalists, and hospitals being prime targets. And the bombs keep dropping. Our corporate embedded media continues to whip up emotion laden nonsense to encourage popular support. Most of us are not buying it. Your editors, as well as progressive Jewish groups, are standing with Palestine against this genocide, joining the call for a end to the nightmare and a long overdue just resolution.

Our country is presently engaged in military actions in 78 countries, spending trillions on weapons for a blood-soaked delusion of competitive hegemony. Meanwhile we struggle just to buy groceries, to pay for price-gouged medicines and rents. Our own corrupt country is increasingly plagued by toxic industrial accidents, police violence, and mass shootings made worse by media hysteria far removed from reality along with the cultivation of divisive partisan rhetoric.

The poems in this collection show how much we have in common as we labor under the scrutiny of bosses, consume toxic food and water, and struggle with bills. Poems in this issue deal with discrimination and homelessness as well as the pride of working in caring professions and the disgust with useless work under bad conditions we do just to survive day to day.

This issue marks the beginning of our 27th year of publishing. An ad that we regularly run for back issues (of which we have plenty) states, "Unfortunately Still Timely." As I sometimes look back at old issues, I was recently struck by how relevant -- even more today -- an issue from Summer 2003 remains. Though this was a great collection we remain proud to have published, it's continuing relevance is more than just disturbing. It is also very discouraging if not demoralizing.

Some poems in this issue struggle with whether our protests and resistance even matter in the face of overwhelming odds and the stubbornly deaf power of the corrupt monstrosity of our seemingly insane ruling class. They affirm, based in our own working class history, as well as continuing labor victories, that it absolutely does matter; that we lose when we give in to hopelessness, cynicism or the cultivated division that isolates and disempowers us. Given the impending climate catastrophe, the danger of growing wars and of nuclear war that threatens our existence, we, like Palestinians, have no choice but to struggle for our own survival against the same entrenched, corporate militarized power.

We remain grateful for your support, for the strong words and poetry sent and to be able to continue publishing in spite of rising prices and postal rates. As a poem by Cathy Porter notes, "Poetry can't solve a damn thing/ but readers can/And we must.