For this issue, I invited friend-of-WRJ Nicole Farmer to write the introductory note. She is a writer based in Asheville, NC, and she first appeared in our Issue 9. She also read a piece for our 2023 contributor reading, among her other contributions. I’ll let her take it from here.

Aaron Lelito, Editor in Chief

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As I read through this issue, the snow moon is waning, and a winter storm will bring below-twenty-degree temperatures in Asheville tonight. As always, the pleasure of reading excites me. I’ve made a fire in the woodstove, and finally, I sit with a mug of tea and pages in hand. Yes, I printed out the whole issue, old school! As a writer, I generally keep several balls in the air — my day job as a teacher, an evening class on the craft of writing, a completed poetry book that I am sending out to contests and publishers, in addition to a collection of poems I am just beginning. So, when Aaron asked if I would write a note of greeting, I jumped at the opportunity and then worried if I would have enough time to do the job well.

Life’s demands can make you laugh or cry, depending on how your day is going, leaving you feeling like a giant or a worm. Or as Marcia Trahan so wisely observes, “The sky drew its purples around itself / and left me small on my doorstep.” How we survive our days as writers, as artists, as humans, is highly individual, particularly in the case of adversity or defeat. What sustains you? What inspires you to create? Is it your relationship to nature? To loved ones? Or is it the act of creating itself? As Thomas John Hurley notices at the end of his poem “By Heart,” “All light has fled save a small sliver on the horizon / I no longer see what I am writing yet / still keep the pencil moving.” As artists, we prevail. Sometimes with all the insanity around us, as well as what the media bombards us with daily, it is the only thing that makes sense.

This issue is full of honest moments about searching for meaning. As Jenna Wysong Filbrun declares, “Joy is somewhere / in the folds of his voice / as it ripples / through the empty limbs / in reach of the moon.”  What is the truth of a kiss and its importance in our short time here on earth? Julia Gaskill gives us the permission to live with “two truths, no lie,” when the lines “I kiss a boy / and do not forget what / is inside of me” become an exploration of sexuality and desire. And, of course, what good is pondering the meaning of life without an awareness of death?  Kathleen Calby confesses in “Returning Home,” “How surprised to find Anubis / riding shotgun in my Corolla now, taking / Thoth’s place: / the god of death, replacing / the one of wisdom.” Or Bart Edelman’s humorous advice on death: “Fight it, if you must / But know the fix is in.” These are the kind of moments that might evoke an involuntary sound of agreement. Maybe you’ll want to snap your fingers! Maybe you’ll smile through your tears. I did. I hope you will too.

The art contained in these pages is beautiful, mysterious, and alarming. I hope you are inspired to reach for your pen, your paintbrush, or your camera after looking through the pages of this issue of Wild Roof Journal.

Nicole Farmer