Editor’s Note

MockingHeart Review friends! Welcome back.

Entering the Fall season means working with a good deal of change–shorter days, pumpkin everything, crisp air…and the Fall issue of MHR! This issue brings with it many excellent and bold writers and artists, all working within our very first theme: liminality. Often defined as a between-state or threshold, liminality connotes change from one state or place to another–a kind of pivoting, a heartbeat keenly frozen in place for just a moment. The fascinating material in this issue is full of such crystallizations, which reflect the light of their artists and the world they inhabit, alongside we who are lucky enough to witness all this happening.

Liminality here also means confronting difficult and beautiful moments from the far or recent past. Featured Poet Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg speaks for many in “Jericho,” finding a common in-between place in a personal situation: “How long have you been lost? All your life?” she writes. “Then you’re getting somewhere. / The walls don’t fall for those who think / they know where they are.” And reflecting on work from her recent exhibition, Featured Artist Leslie Friedman muses, “In a time for movements, how do we come together to create our chorus of shared voices (rather than a unified voice)?” The work she presents here (take a look!) grapples with these ephemeral issues and others as well. In “The Smallest Wren,” poet Dave Malone grapples with a liminality that’s sublime in its hard reality: “The evening won’t cool / since you left. / Lawns brown like foxes.” So we learn that liminality can also be a lament.

I write this note in the midst of the Festival of Words, an annual event here in Louisiana where a few featured authors convene to lead workshops in the community and public schools, and to give readings. As one of those authors this year, I’ve reflected on how liminality influences teaching and creative work–teachers and writers construct lessons and creative opportunities, and students follow them like synapses at work, sometimes making connections we only imagined–but it’s those between-spaces, I like to think, that make the most difference. The moments where one can see the creative connections wiring themselves up in the minds of their receivers are truly special, and at MockingHeart Review we celebrate these moments too. Many can be found in this issue.

But I’ve kept you from your reading and viewing for too long–a gorgeous issue of MockingHeart Review awaits! Take a leisurely Fall stroll through these pages of poetry and artwork, and we’ll put the coffee on for you. And thanks again, as always, for your excellent work in the world.

Tyler Robert Sheldon, Editor-in-Chief