The chorus of poetic voices in our Winter 2021 issue intone a requiem for the losses of mortal humanity. Lost innocence, lost pregnancy, loss of mobility or memory, lost loved ones, lost opportunity to speak love, and, importantly, the loss of respect we deserve from others, due to physical abuse or racism and other forms of prejudice, ignorance, or unrestrained ego. The majority of poems here, however, have not been selected primarily for their social relevance but because they offer us a better understanding of what suffering in its various iterations looks and feels like. Several suggest how we face up to what we must. One might argue that human dignity is, in part, defined by our grace in response to suffering and death. In the poetry of this issue, there is much grace—of language, technique, and, above all, in the strength of character that informs these works and lifts us all.

As example, the speaker in Christine Himmelfarb’s debut poem “What Holds” disdains self-pity as she deals with two miscarriages, expressing her pain with controlled irony and wordplay:

++++Even the word itself holds within it another noun, the way I did.
++++And then there’s the carriage.
++++A reminder of an empty one.

In her poem, the speaker’s determination to give birth results in a felicitous bargain with the universe.

In Emma Conally-Barklem’s “Lodged in My Throat,” the speaker poignantly recalls childhood trauma in imagery that both laments and embraces the loss of a little girl’s innocence that only her courageous adult affirmation of self-worth can redeem. “The child curled inside the wardrobe must be allowed her time, / Daisies held, hopeful to reclaim what is hers and mine.” A similar resilience, defiant, more sharply edged, can be heard in Jessica Mehta’s “Dressed”: “I wear scars like others wear scarves, / pretty embellishments and pops / of color.” And in “My Son Studies the Stars,” Marceline White calmly assesses what must be endured if she is to help her son:

++++He is ill. See the
++++blood pooling in his feet;
++++see the purple patterns on his legs;
++++++++++++see nimbus;
++++++++++++see Orion’s belt.

The powerful forces that govern the fate of all things physical are given their due in Kasha Gauthier’s “Coast Guard Beach, Cape Cod National Seashore, Late Winter,” as the speaker begs the waves to take her deceased father “and carry him on your crests forevermore,”  yet is forced to recognize “the bitter gale took only my voice— / reminding me: / at the edge of the world, / ice always wins, wind always wins / and rocks will yield their ground / smoothing each other as they go.” The desire to immortalize or simply preserve what is human may feel futile given a universe that functions cyclically, with birth and life followed by decay and death. Yet just as the speaker in Gauthier’s poem returns to a favorite place by the ocean she shared with her father, seeking to maintain that vital spiritual connection, so too in “Return to Water,” by Dr. Sarath Reddy, do we see the poet’s parents tending dutifully, tenderly, to his sister’s remains:

++++++++++++++++Our parents cradled her
++++blue urn, adorned with a solitary dove, at the ocean’s edge
++++where it is always windy, scattering what they had created
++++into the restless brine where life began.

What we love passes, while the seasons and the raw energy of the infinite cosmos continue. Articulated sentience is the particular and precious gift of evolved humanity. The cacophony and self-centered meanness of our politics may have obscured the miraculous potential of that gift. Poets and other writers help us see our finite, brief lives valued through their eyes, our worth proclaimed in exquisite and passionate language. They revive our faith in what is most important. I hope you will read carefully, and find meaningful, the work of all fourteen poets of this issue.

Steve Granzyk is the poetry editor of Please See Me.