EDITOR’S LETTER

It’s Spring again, MockingHeart Review friends, and Summer will be upon us before long.

As everyone is aware, this is a time of great uncertainty. You might remember that our Winter 2020 issue‘s theme was Solitude, a state of being in the world that fits even closer now, as for these past months we’ve largely kept to ourselves and kept our loved ones close when possible. To those who have been impacted in one way or another by the novel coronavirus–which is to say, a great many of us–please know that MHR‘s thoughts are with you.

Though our Spring/Summer issues adhere to no theme, similar impulses radiate throughout this issue. Many contributors here speak on their recent lives, and others metaphorize. Featured Poet Cameron Morse discusses our new normal in “Self-Quarantine,” and artist Leah Hamel grapples with ephemerality and permanence through her piece Memory is a Ghost. Poet Kristi Helgeson’s “On Confessing I’d Rather Be Alone on a Beach in Spain Reading Lorca” ponders a likely universal need for escape–from place, from self–and in Smoke, Featured Artist Lynda Frese warns of how nature and we, its inhabitants, depend so greatly on one another.

Like you, we at MHR look forward to that point in the future when the world is a bit easier–when we can all congregate safely and experience the world more in person than through a screen. But while we have you here, I’ll mention that we’re glad you enjoy reading and viewing this journal, and we hope you’ll find this new issue fulfilling. Thank you, as ever, for your excellent work in the world.

Tyler Robert Sheldon, Editor-in-Chief