the blueshift journal

EDITOR'S NOTE

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"I am not safe

any place, and no place can save me. Just look what the mountains

have done to me. Exactly what the city did – and then some."

--Vievee Francis, "Everywhere and Here Too" Issue VI

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I'm sick of you, 2016. 

 

You went & took what we did not have to give, & I'm sick of this feeling, this hopelessness.

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For days, I trembled as I read through this issue. I wish, I wish I could be like all of you. Angry & powerful & fearless. Take back your American Dream, your promises are tainted & full of razor blades. This country is black as rotting teeth & you better get used to it. Do your worst. We rebuild & rebuild & rebuild. Suffering is nothing more than the heart's gravity. These wounds will heal.

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It is always this way, isn't it?

 

This country knocks us down again & again, & when we are at our worst, we are told to hide our tears & fight as though we don't even have the right to grieve. How many times have we rebuilt these bodies? How many times must we put ourselves back together?

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If you get one thing from this issue, I want it to be this. We are hurting. This country is hurting, but do not take this to mean that "art has (somehow) become more necessary than ever before." What has art been doing all these years, other than warning the world of the very reality we face today? Maybe you just weren't listening.

 

But that said, art is most certainly as needed as ever before. Each & every day, I consider myself so lucky to be exposed to your magic, your beauty. From Safia Elhillo to Marlin Jenkins to Qistina Khalidah. From Gabriel Ramirez to Jamie Uy to Hari Alluri & so many more, just in this issue.

 

Thank you all for another year of hope. Of glory. Of community. Of all you give.

 

We at Blueshift will keep trying to do what we know best. We will continue to try to provide a platform for your work, for your most crushing post-election songs, as long as we possibly can. When all else fails, we hope we can be a community in writing that will never cease to lift you up, shake with you, burn with you, & most of all, celebrate you.

I ask you to keep believing in the creative communities you've created & made possible. And to my queer & poc kin, you are loved. You are so loved.

I wish you all the most beautiful days to come.

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Tyler Tsay

Editor in Chief

December 19, 2016

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