Editor's Note

David Lynch passing hit me harder than I expected. I felt this great emptiness for days, a strange feeling that some great force of creative thought had blipped out of our universe. It really threw me off. One of the reasons why I always gravitated toward the works of David Lynch wasn’t so much because I felt like I understood his work or saw similarities in my own artistic choices or aesthetics, but because it felt like he was tapping into some greater, deeper, darker wavelength that I’d never quite reach, some mysterious place where all these images and feelings and symbols could mean one thing, could mean another, could mean anything. 

Sometimes it’s appealing to try to decipher those puzzle pieces as a collective, read articles about what Lynch meant by this or that. But in truth I enjoy how Lynch created work and allowed us our own space to decipher for ourselves. His work clearly meant something specific and important to him, but he seemed to enjoy how the art created a unique feeling and reaction in others. Creativity is bridge building, between the artist and those on the other side. The great thing about Lynch is his work took us to so many unexpected places inside ourselves and he allowed those places to be different than he may have intended. Sometimes when people insisted on pinning down his meaning, he’d react with evasiveness or even bemused indifference, because it’s not about trying to distill it down to one nugget of truth and then crying out that you solved it. It’s about experiencing it for ourselves and then using that feeling to create something new. Talking about it or trying to solve it didn’t add to the experience or purpose. It felt like a very Taoist approach, in a way, and I love that about his strange, wondrous art. 

I’ll always appreciate his desire to inspire emotional reactions with his work—be it hopeful or frightening—and to inspire others to create, find their own meaning and purpose, and to share that with others. To keep the creative cycle rolling. 

I’m deeply thankful for those who shared their work for our open call, and I’m excited to share the poems selected. I added a couple of my own, something I try not to do, but considering this issue’s theme, I couldn’t resist. I hope you enjoy the issue, and remember, as David said, “Keep your eye on the donut, not on the hole.”

James Duncan, Editor