Letter From the Editors: Issue 46

September 2021

Dear Readers,

It’s nearly impossible to disentangle our experiences as Salt Hill editors from our experiences as MFA students here at Syracuse University. Each semester, we read submissions and assemble our next issue while taking classes, teaching undergrads, and (of course) attending to our own writ- ing, and each of these tasks has proven increasingly difficult over this past academic year. Those of us returning next year cherish the possibility of resuming even a fraction of the interactions and traditions that make up this program.

Yet, like everyone, we are still coming to terms with all that we’ve experienced and lost this past year. We still mourn the unexpected passing of Anthony Veasna So, a recent graduate of our program. We still mourn the innumerable instances of state violence and hate crimes (particularly against members of the Black and AAPI community), as well as attempts to strip away voting rights and legal protections for marginalized communities. And, of course, we mourn the lives lost to a global pandemic that continues to afflict so many people.

Like you, we find ourselves hoping this coming year will bring some of the rejuvenation that Tawanda Mulalu asks for in the opening lines of “Newness” when he implores, “Make me clean and pretty as / a blade of grass called upon / a mouth to sound a whistle.” But we know that being made clean doesn’t fully wash away the memory of what we’re leaving behind, and we think the work of our contributors showcases the range of what these new days will entail. Some days, we’ll only be able to take stock of what we’ve lost, as K. Iver captures: “Faces / have softened in your hands. // Steering wheels have lived / there a long time. But I can’t / celebrate that. Not yet.”

We offer this issue to you with great, perhaps even desperate, optimism, lit up by Joanna Currey’s benediction: “May you feel so grateful some days / it might be irreverent.” We’re irreverently grateful for the support and faith of our readers and contributors, and for the part we play in this exchange of words.

— Jon Lemay and Sophie van Waardenberg