Editor’s Quarter Note
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Happy spring from Nashville, TN, where the cicadas are loud and proud. I wanted to write a welcoming note for you – reader, listener – thanks for being on the other end of the line.
While conjuring dreams for this magazine and soliciting work from these dream contributors, it was my hope that together we might set the tone for a magazine that doesn’t only bridge a gap between literary and musical spaces, but also cross pollinates something new and integrative within that gap. I feel that this suite of work does just that.
As these writers, musicians, and artists sent their work in response to a rather open-ended call for submissions, I was delighted to notice little threads of synchronicity between pieces: Dan Wriggins’ line about a “sweet remix with violin” and AM Ringwalt’s “Violin.” Two video poems – one by Austyn Wohlers and the other by Glam Campbell – both multi-layered sonically and visually. Glam mentions his cat, and then a stray cat appears in Trevor Nikrant’s liner notes, and more cats appear in Brook Chambers’ listening meditation, “listen i.” The word “light” gleams and shifts throughout Brook’s poem as well as LM Brimmer’s “coda.” Then there’s the twinning of Juliana Feliciano Reyes & Bea Troxel’s epistolary essay about karaoke, and the duet in my poem and accompanying soundscape, “Twin Lead Lines” – not to mention the twin power of Bill Gage and Cheater Slicks as reviewed by Jerry David DeCicca. And bringing it back to Austyn’s video titled after locusts – I received it in my inbox the same week that a brood of cicadas emerged in my own neighborhood. The only other creature I seemed to see as frequently? Cardinals – who apear in Ryan Davis’ poem. I’m sharing all of this mostly to say: I hope that you might find your own resonances here, between the pieces of this issue and the pieces of your life.
Thanks to all of these contributors for believing in something new. Extra thanks to Bea and Brook for lending a hand in proofreading the issue, and to Trevor for helping with the design and sharing the typewritten artwork that became our logo. And thanks to friends Hilary Bell and Katie Miller for believing in and encouraging this idea when it was only gestating underground with the cicadas.
When enough cicadas sing together, Hilary recently made me aware, there’s a second sound – almost an overtone above them – alien-like. Listening to it now, outside my window while editing this issue, it feels like the soundtrack. Some wild, high wind that blows through when enough of us sing together.
Keep listening!
Lou Turner
Quarter Notes Magazine 