One of our poets asks the poignant question: how can we write such beauty in the midst of this misery? Certainly in our present times, COVID-19 is a constant and deadly threat. We’re not yet rid of the ash and greater devastation caused by the eruption of La Soufriere in St. Vincent. The hurricane season is soon upon us.
It is for all the reasons given above that we search through our inner resources and choose LOVE as a theme for this issue, in hopes that the sustaining and redemptive power of this universal force will offer some resistance against the tide of nearly overwhelming uncertainty.
As we may anticipate, this issue offers a wide spectrum of love’s expressions, whether that love is for the romantic and sexual, books, cars, music, Nature or family. But as one may also expect, there are no easy answers in the treatment of this theme. Several of our poets and fiction writers expose us to the weaknesses of human love: distrust, betrayal, infidelity, the unknowability of the other or even of the self.
But the ongoing wonder of art is the writer’s ability, by means of sensitivity and skill, to distill beauty out of sadness, or even tragedy; to extract for readers by way of imagery, metaphor, careful and deliberate choice of words, marriage of sound and sense, rhythm – the means by which we are able to enjoy and appreciate the feelings and experiences expressed on the page.
One would hardly find a writer who does not enjoy his/her craft. But good writing is hard work. I think we owe our writers a debt of gratitude for their commitment to capturing for us in words, one experience or another that we often recognise in some way as our own.
And we feel gratified when that writer validates that experience or feeling. For we are now part of a wider community of fellow human beings, able, hopefully, to make a little more sense of this business of living. Moreover, we are made conscious that beauty is still not only possible, but also within our reach. And so our lives and the world itself may become that much more bearable.