So Much Content and Finding Quiet
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When I was in high school, I was never at a loss for things to say. I had countless ideas and a sense of self-importance that had me believing that people wanted to read what I had to write. For years, I kept a fairly active blog and posted long essays and stories regularly, speculating about the ways of the world and decrying its faults.
Anymore, the mere idea of writing an editor's note for an online literary magazine seems oppressive and daunting. After all, what do I have to say that hasn't been said - and said better - before? At a time when there is just so much content in the world and so many voices scrambling to be heard, when there's so much pressure to find news and exciting ways to monetize our ideas, our speech, our time, when there's so much at stake in being right, I am finding it incredibly difficult to say anything. I wish I could say that this is because I have turned a page in my life and I am just finding ways to be quiet and find calm, but this would not be true. I am, perhaps, more frazzled and anxious than I ever have been, and the cacophony of the digital landscape isn't helping. I catch myself growing increasingly Bradburyian in my thought processes, and there have been times I have seriously debated eschewing my digital citizenship entirely. I question whether or not my presence on the Internet is helping me to communicate at all, or whether all the jostling, competing noise is contributing to my general lack of creativity and malaise. It's where I'm living and I'm not sure exactly what to do about any of it. The consolation here is that I am fairly confident that Jarfly isn't contributing to the immutable din that fills the digital sphere, and my hope is that the work of these writers won't be flattened into just more scrollable Internet content. As a free, online literary magazine, there's no advertising to angle for, no clout to chase. As a magazine with an editorial staff of one, there's precious little pressure to make the magazine something that looks good on a resume to boost a staff's career. Instead, I see Jarfly as a garden or a small, cozy room where - maybe - someone can find some quiet. The poems in Jarfly's sixth issue are largely meditative, observational pieces that beckon us to take moments for contemplation. Through these poems, may we reflect upon the tender complexities of our humanity and close out the rest of the world for just a few minutes. Perhaps the voices held up in this issue may offer the space you need to clear away the static of the world and find something within yourself that you'd like to say. I wish you every beautiful and true thing. Ian C. Williams Jarfly Editor-in-Chief |
Jarfly News Bulletin
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Because this is the first news bulletin included in Jarfly, I do want to take some time to celebrate and share our contributors' accomplishments from beyond 2022-2023 and reach back a few years prior. Please check out the work that these poets have done and support them socially and financially!
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Ian C. WilliamsIan C. Williams is a poet and teacher from Appalachia. He is also the editor-in-chief for Jarfly: A Poetry Magazine. In 2019, Williams received a Masters in Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Oklahoma State University, and his debut full-length collection of poems, Every Wreckage, is forthcoming from Fernwood Press in 2023. His chapbook, House of Bones, is available in person or from the National Federation of State Poetry Societies. He currently lives with his wife and two sons in Fairmont, West Virginia.
Twitter // @ianwilliamspoet Blsky // @iancwilliamspoet.bsky.social Instagram // @iancwilliamspoet |