EDITOR’S LETTER

The end of the year is fast approaching, MockingHeart friends! Wild that we’re here already, with mornings slowly welcoming their seasonal chill, and the evening light taking on that warm yellow cast that makes Fall the perfect season of the Golden Hour. Isn’t that something–Fall is finally among us, and even here in Louisiana where the heat hangs over everything like an insulating coat, the cold is beginning to make itself known. One might say that this turning possesses a certain inevitability, which is our Fall 2023 issue’s theme.

The idea that something is determined and immutable–that it’s gonna happen, no matter what interventions we might try to make–is difficult for many to grapple with. This is understandable for all the expected reasons, and all of the cliches as well. Death, taxes, and (in this economy) inflation come to mind. Certitude is seldom associated with anything good in popular media, either. From Merlin’s prophesies in Arthurian legend to rogue program Agent Smith’s zealotry in the Matrix franchise, tellers of inevitability can usually be counted on to deliver some bad news.

But this theme communicates more than one impulse, as we see in this issue of MockingHeart Review. Featured Poet Michelle Bitting pushes back against America’s fraught political milieu in “Let Kids Be Kids,” condemning Florida legislation “designed to foment discrimination and abuse under the reckless guise of ‘care.’” She writes, “I don’t know what you’re up to, America, / But what I do know / It’s not good for the body.” Tattoo artist Chad A. Norris interrogates the idea of changing one’s fate–throwing off inevitability–in his watercolor-and gouache piece Jazz Hands. In “The Wastes,” Lee Gill hopes for a fresh start, writing, “When is God gonna do something about this trash heap?” A good old-fashioned apocalypse does everyone some good, he suggests–and maybe one is already preprogrammed for later. And in Impermanence, ceramic artist Rachel Funk knows that touch is fleeting, no matter what, no matter how long we’ve waited for it.

And yet we’re all still here. Still reading, creating, and carrying our “maker” impulse forward with us. And maybe that’s inevitable too.

I hope you enjoy the work in this issue. I hope it does its job so well that your enjoyment feels…inevitable. 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