Editor’s Quarter Note
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Hey Quarter Notes friends,
2025 has reached its thin-veil time, and I hope it’s treating you well. I think this Fall issue will provide you with some nourishing food for thought in these darker, quieter days.
Right away, Katherine Oung welcomes us into the American Water of it all with both elegy and ode. And where our Summer issue featured some wonderful writing about summers spent on lakes, our Fall issue picks up the thread with an interview with Jayve Montgomery about his sonic research project, Lake Black Town, which takes place at the sites of lakes made from former Black towns. He’s incredibly generous in the interview, laying out the history and inspiration for this research, the joy of following his creative compass, and the power of language.
Next, we enter an ekphrastic mode with three pieces from Jory Mickelson’s book-length poem about the life and work of Andy Warhol, before Casey Chalmers returns us to the water with Night Swimming, a poem inspired by the first time he heard R.E.M.’s Automatic for the People album. Then, Anna Rahkonen’s poem “12” Club Mix” transports us to where “eternal organs / play the longest note;” and that note continues to be held out in Rebecca Clifford’s striking poem, “Fermata.”
The issue ends where it began—in the water. Water Valley, MS, to be exact, where Tim Lee of the independent press Cool Dog Sound and the band Bark swims in multiple creative projects with his collaborator, Susan. In our interview about all of the above, he brims with wisdom about how art is in the doing. It might be the encouragement you need.
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Keep listening! ✩♬ ₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧
Lou Turner, editor
Quarter Notes Magazine 