Dear Readers,
In our roles as managing editors and production assistant, our hope was to create a space where we felt comfortable building close relationships with each other, our peers, and you—the reader—bolstering the broader creative community that Gandy Dancer has embodied for thirteen years. As the experiences we get from this class are inextricably linked to the world around us, we felt it was crucial in times like these to build strong bonds with each other that reflected the relationships and conversations we want to have outside of Welles 216. We chose to do this by way of genre group bonding—going out to coffee and having movie nights—with the goal of getting to know each other more intimately. As we were reviewing pieces this semester, we realized that our contributors were occupied with similar questions about their connections to place, family, self, and even our political climate. And now, we share them with you.
Lori Yamond’s braided essay “The Womb Shaped Fruit” investigates the intricate ties that bind us to the earth, to our mothers, and to ourselves. Balancing individual threads that discuss the role of the fig in the lifespan of the wasps it hosts and the struggle to maintain individuality in the midst of motherhood, Yamond asks us to confront ourselves: “We wish to turn a blind eye to the pain ravaging the woman whose motherhood has labeled her as resilient. Maybe this blind eye has given us the courage to be the ones to cause the ravaging pain…” By exploring the unique harm borne by those, human and otherwise, who create and sustain life, Yamond prompts a deeper conversation about our relationship to an environment in flux.
The work published here plunges deeper into the typical connections people have and breaks them down piece by piece, revealing why we build relationships in the first place. For example, in Kira Hook’s short story “Look-ing Down From Parliament Hill,” the narrator reflects on her miscarriage and how it affects her relationship with herself, with what was lost, and the partner with whom she shares this lost child. Perhaps in connection with Sylvia Plath’s poem, “Parliament Hill Fields,” which was written a week after Plath’s miscarriage, Hook places us in the narrator’s thoughts as “she swallows the name she gave to tissue, mucus, and bloody cells.” The image of blood and pieces of the body highlight the dissonance and desire for connection the narrator has to what was lost. We even see her recognize her feelings about her husband in the moment and how “her countenance is fractured under her husband’s gaze.” Hook brings this moment to life in just one page, and in this brevity, she reveals something profound about our narrator and her conception of her loss, underscoring the raw reality of grief and the complex reasons we seek connection in such difficult times.
The art included here also examines the need for relationships and connection, as well as the many different places one might find it. Michaela Chittenden’s “The American Dream” transports us to a fifties-style American living room, where a family is watching Elvis performing on the television. The smile of the woman sitting on the floor gives us a sense of hope and that even something as simple as watching TV can bring a whole world together. Natalie Vazquez-Martinez’s colorful self portraits, playing with mediums as varied as oil on canvas in “Me” and “Moi,” and painted wood blocks assembling a still more abstract face, provide a sense of the strange and everchanging nature of one’s relationship to self.
This issue doesn’t just examine personal and interpersonal relationships; it also considers dynamics of authority and how they affect our lives as a whole. In the midst of the current administration, the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, and countless headlines regarding our political landscape, individuals have had to reassess their relationship with the government, their communities, and the planet. The poets in this issue have put themselves in the epicenter of current events, both in the world and their own backyards, to deliver a reminder of our place in it all. Michael Crowley’s poem “Subtropic” explores climate change through memories of enjoying native fruits in New York that will no longer thrive in the state’s new “humid subtropical climate.” Monty Cooke’s “Zainab Abu Halib” tells of five-month-old Zainab Abu Halib, a Palestinian “baby who will never be a child’’ who starved to death in Gaza. In “My Method to Slightly Mitigate the Harm of Wealth Inequality” Owen Penhollow brilliantly, and comedically, outlines how the 1% could really benefit the rest of us by naming buildings after “the most heinous rich person” so we might get a discount out of it.
We want this issue to serve as a place where you can see and find yourself. As the new stewards of the magazine, we came into our roles seeing how the growing shadow of censorship has seeped into our everyday lives, building anxiety over a possible dark future for our journal and others like it. Because of this, and in addition to recent cuts to education and the arts, we knew it was even more integral to continue to allow Gandy Dancer to be a place where all voices, experiences, and experiments can find a permanent and unwavering home. “Elinguation” by Monty Cooke stands as a pillar, a reminder that “The tongue is mightier than the sword (…) if you know what you fight for.” It’s a scary world out there, full of adversity that threatens to consume us. However, this journal affirms that even in the face of difficult dynamics, it is crucial to find a safe space to confront those issues—this is ours. We hope you love 14.1 as much as we do, and maybe even find a sense of home in it too. We can’t wait to see you again next semester.
Always in your corner,
Nina Avallone-Serra, Sonia Horowitz, and Paige Loucks