introduction
Susan Goslee’s poem “Ticket Stub,” which you will find in this issue, attests that “Cages indicate intent.” The hierarchies we live in are not the way the world works, but the way the world was forced to work. As freedom shrinks, the emboldened imperial forces have made clear whom they would like to get rid of, who is unwanted in their dreamscape.
It is no accident that the term “unwanted” raises pity and implies a smallness, as if the only way to liberation is through approval from the system. This issue presents unwantedness as a disruption that draws attention to the weaknesses of corrupt gods. Despite the systems built against their existence, the unwanted go on, carrying with them a kind of hope that outlives all civilizations. There is nothing small about that.
I hope you enjoy this selection of poems, stories, and translations tackling the condition and the power of being unwanted.
— Madina Tuhbatullina
Madina Tuhbatullina is a poet and international student from Turkmenistan. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in New American Writing, Fourth River, Indianapolis Review, and elsewhere. Madina holds a Creative Writing MFA from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She has received fellowships from Tupelo Press, Los Angeles Review of Books, and Sundress Academy for the Arts.