The journal takes its name from a poem by Anselm Hollo, 'Question':
'Know the various abuses of the locution, know all the shit one may have to eat in the afterhaze: yet if you cannot say to another you, "I love you," how can you ever say anything anymore anywhere in this world?' (Pick Up the House 48).
We like this poem a lot. We have never read a poem in which the word 'shit' appears to better effect than it does here. Ditto the words 'I love you'. We appreciate that Hollo expresses the compromised position that we constantly feel ourselves struggling against, especially in relation to uttering words such as 'I love you'. We find that reading this poem vigorously brings it home to us that we do want to say something, now, here, and it engages us to strive towards that.
Hollo's poem starts us thinking of the ways in which artists we admire have managed to say things in their own ways. It makes us remember the conclusion of Bruce Boone's essay 'Monsters', in which he asserts, in a glorious climax that follows his detailing of cultural debasement, 'To know this however, all of this, and still align oneself with hope is to be filled with great, enduring and unspeakable joy' (My Walk with Bob 20).
We feel ourselves desperate for that hope. We desire that enduring joy. We have our arms stretched towards the sky at the side of a muddy pitch screaming 'Pick US! PICK US!' We're not sure if this is the right time to say those three words. Our experience tells us that it's dangerous, especially now, and especially here. In an uncharacteristic moment of courage, though, and with a pretty feeble but definitely audible voice we somehow manage to say,
Dear readers, dear contributors,
We love you.
Now, please send us poems, essays, stories, anything.
