EDITOR’S LETTER

It’s a new year, MockingHeart Review friends! Wild how time marches on. It’s good to talk with you again.

Here in 2025, a concept in the minds of many folks has been Justice–the idea of treating people fairly and impartially, and also holding them accountable for their actions, no matter who they might be. The poems in this issue explore this idea–and its mirror, injustice–in various ways. Our Featured Poet, Subhaga Crystal Bacon, argues in “World of Men” that ideal justice is impartial: “The sky belongs to no one, / no country.” Jena Kitchen notes the importance of staying steadfast despite a difficult world in her poem “Stalwart as the Spider,” and Bessie Senette suggests that our idea of justice may be skewed by our very being, as she writes, “[T]he most absurd creation of all / Had only two legs.” James Benger takes a darker view of justice in “sprout,” writing, “let this world / grind your bones.” And William Heath imagines the justice framing a single boy’s childhood: “he is proud / to be the badass of his block.”

This issue also showcases a rich array of artwork–the most of any MockingHeart Review issue to date–much of it leaning into personal expressions of justice. Dylan Hong’s A Fish Market and Matt Byun’s Directions show what it takes to make sense of a personal world in both literal and abstract terms. And we might say that Eugene Han’s Module 1 interrogates what constitutes the state of being complete–its own sort of personal justice.

No matter your idea of this theme, we hope you’ll find a mirror here, in this new issue, the first issue of MockingHeart Review‘s tenth year! Keep on creating, dear MockingHeart friends, and thank you as always for your excellent work in the world. We need it now perhaps more than ever before.

Tyler Robert Sheldon, Editor-in-Chief