Editor’s Note, July/August 2024

Each summer in Chicago, when this city’s particular combination of heat and humidity comes for everyone (as it is doing right now), I am reminded of the air-conditioned reprieve of the movie theater. The quick escape from both weather and worry that summer blockbusters offer, with all my favorite comic book heroes up on the screen in CGIed splendor. More than the action sequences or otherworldly landscapes, I am fascinated by their origin stories—the hope that a single event could lead to a whole different way of being in the world.

Every poet, like every superhero, has an origin story, some event or coincidence that introduced them to the art form. Poetry is not a superpower that is harnessed in a flash, though—and this is where the analogy falls apart—poetry is duende plus work, then more work. But it does require some kind of inspiration to be activated. For more than a few of my poet friends, their poetic motivation was trying to impress a crush. Others were inspired by teachers or afterschool programs that helped make verse less puzzling. One poet I know discovered poetry by inadvertently walking into a reading. I love the thought of a poet-in-waiting finding her future because she’d been given the wrong address. It’s like suddenly discovering you can fly while trying to walk up the stairs.

Sometimes a poetic metamorphosis can happen as the result of a communal event. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the Fire & Ink Festival was both the catalyst and enabler of Black LGBTQ+ writers at a time when there were few venues for their voices. The folio in this issue includes work from some of the festival’s participating poets—often in conversation with one another. Curator Samiya Bashir’s fierce introduction alongside Steven G Fullwood’s bustling oral history offers context for this important—and recently rebooted by Bashir as Fire & Inkwell—gathering.

Beyond their own influential poetry, many of the poets in these pages are also part of other poets’ origin stories as teachers, mentors, inspirations, and guides. They’ve founded cultural organizations and book clubs. They’ve pushed for equity in publishing and created safe spaces to gather. This issue is brimming with writers who have catalyzed other poets through the arduous work they’ve done in the world. They’re a reminder that one of  the only superhuman things about poetry is the tenacity it takes to continue. Poetry isn’t a singular event. It happens consistently, lingeringly, and with all the heated verve of a Chicago summer.