EDITOR’S LETTER

Well well, MockingHeart friends! Summer is basically here, and it feels like it’s been forever since we last talked. Has your year been fruitful so far, and have you seen the benefits of the resourcefulness we worked on in the last issue of MockingHeart Review? I certainly hope so! Here at MHR, the middle of the year means an issue dedicated to the most immediate and poignant thoughts we can muster–and because of this, as you’ll recall, our Spring/Summer issues have no dedicated theme. Bearing this idea in mind, the work in this issue, MHR 8.2, runs the gamut from chuckle-worthy humor to more serious historical and contemporary issues. The personal is often political, as many have said, and that holds true here: each piece in the issue holds under its surface a significant and urgent idea.

For some work here, that means allowing oneself to find happiness. In Cecil Morris’s “Resolution from My Mother,” he writes, “Give yourself permission to speak in joy / through all four seasons of the heart.” Such an idea can feel like a radical act in a time so fraught as ours has been lately–but been through a politics, economics, and a world-changing pandemic, it’s realistically just what we need. Featured Poet Jo Taylor extolls connections in the natural world in “Awaiting the Phoebe’s Song,” musing on how we can see “the cardinal’s red crest in clusters / of imperial-purple grapes, hear / the golden crowned kinglet in bearded // blue iris, graceful and tall.” Despite it all, many poets in this issue seem to suggest, we will persist in our positivity.

But that’s not to say that dark themes have no place here. Emily Eads foretells an apocalypse in “Bovine Blues,” and in “End (Times) Game,” Steve Brisendine discusses the culture wars and conspiracy theories that have divided us: “microchips hidden in vaccines, / just waiting to be slipped / under the skin of the deceived.” In many pieces, there persists an undertone of warning–as Eads writes, “look! Do you see it?” This is what might come if we’re not careful.

As I write this letter, summer has already shown its face here in Louisiana. It’s hot enough that the best parts of any day are once again evenings–but that’s also meant many great writing events when the sun starts setting. The Festival of Words Cultural Arts Collective, an excellent arts organization here in Louisiana, has once again started up both its live and virtual reading series, and while giving a poetry reading last week with them in Grand Coteau, Louisiana, I felt so very fortunate to be part of such a vibrant writerly community. Taking part in groups like this is restorative to the soul, and I hope that you too are able to find community for your artistic endeavors! That’s the effect we hope each issue of MockingHeart Review has for you too.

I also hope you enjoy the work in this issue, friends. Thanks for reading, for submitting, and for being a part of the MockingHeart community. Things wouldn’t be the same without you. And thanks again, as ever, for your excellent work in the world.

Tyler Robert Sheldon, Editor-in-Chief