Dear readers,
This issue is filled with such goodness! I am glad to see a diversity of voices and interpretations of nightshade. Nightshade (Solanaceae) is such an interesting family, from delicious tomatos and chilli that spice and enrich our food, to poison like angels' trumpet and datura. What's the difference between goji berries used in Chinese cooking and Belladonna (deadly nightshade)? What might be food for someone might be poison to another. What's the difference between good and evil? Is there a thin line demarcating the two or none at all?
I am pleased to publish the poems of Rebecca Y. Lee. "Offering" and "Gluttony" expands our understanding of nightshade, the lines between beauty, sustenance and its consequences.
I am also delighted to publish "Tomato" by Jen Zink. The short poem packs an emotional punch when a son's transitioning is seen from a parent's perspective.
Likewise, I love the lush language in Laura Weymouth's "Berries In The Hedgerow" and Lindsay Beth Maruska's "Solanum dulcamara", invoking the sense of running through wild fields and chancing about tempting fruits or the immediacy and vivid vermillion blood that pregnancy and childbirth bring. Maruska's "Solanum" invokes the dual natures of nightshade with its ability to heal and do harm. So does RL Mosswood's "Bittersweet" where the plant is neither good nor evil, but just a plant. The revelation, that her children is more important, is indeed bittersweet.
Lastly, a lycanthropic poem provides a darkly humorous twist in PS Cottier's "Lycium barbarum". A pack's revenge on the health-food obsession of the wealthy and privileged is indeed very sweet.
So, readers, let's look within ourselves. Are we dual-natured like the Nightshade family? Is there truly good and bad? Why stick to such polarities and opposites?
Joyce, Editor-in-Chief
This issue is filled with such goodness! I am glad to see a diversity of voices and interpretations of nightshade. Nightshade (Solanaceae) is such an interesting family, from delicious tomatos and chilli that spice and enrich our food, to poison like angels' trumpet and datura. What's the difference between goji berries used in Chinese cooking and Belladonna (deadly nightshade)? What might be food for someone might be poison to another. What's the difference between good and evil? Is there a thin line demarcating the two or none at all?
I am pleased to publish the poems of Rebecca Y. Lee. "Offering" and "Gluttony" expands our understanding of nightshade, the lines between beauty, sustenance and its consequences.
I am also delighted to publish "Tomato" by Jen Zink. The short poem packs an emotional punch when a son's transitioning is seen from a parent's perspective.
Likewise, I love the lush language in Laura Weymouth's "Berries In The Hedgerow" and Lindsay Beth Maruska's "Solanum dulcamara", invoking the sense of running through wild fields and chancing about tempting fruits or the immediacy and vivid vermillion blood that pregnancy and childbirth bring. Maruska's "Solanum" invokes the dual natures of nightshade with its ability to heal and do harm. So does RL Mosswood's "Bittersweet" where the plant is neither good nor evil, but just a plant. The revelation, that her children is more important, is indeed bittersweet.
Lastly, a lycanthropic poem provides a darkly humorous twist in PS Cottier's "Lycium barbarum". A pack's revenge on the health-food obsession of the wealthy and privileged is indeed very sweet.
So, readers, let's look within ourselves. Are we dual-natured like the Nightshade family? Is there truly good and bad? Why stick to such polarities and opposites?
Joyce, Editor-in-Chief