So newly out, we had no reason to publish an issue, but with four months stabilized, our submissions showed terrific passion for the globular narrative and health writing. Genders and countries were something we were most proud of for ONE, surprised, too, by the productivity of the experiment of walling-in traumatic illness flexibly enough for authors and artists to bring telescope to the religion of mindfulness. Writing narrative about the brain is a courageous gift.
Issue Two
My sincerest hope for this issue has to do with homage. Through pain, Plath paved a mighty road for us. Culture has thanked Plath by making her a caricature that glamorizes her deepest agonies. In many ways, it’s fitting, completely unsurprising. We live in a world that saddles women to stereotypes they’ve long ago outgrown, that never fit them in the first place. Why does it take a woman’s death to bring change? Through Plath, let’s celebrate our cerebral weather together—give thanks for the sacrifice of her life.
We’ve amassed nearly 30 pieces for this issue. My goal at the start of this project was seven. Foolishly, I wanted this to be a slim issue in the aftermath of PLATH: she, a heavyweight, what could we possibly do next? Movies, maybe, I’d seen some bad ones lately, and every time I did watch shows, I found myself more concerned for the characters’ mental health than outright plot. Mental health lies dormant and massive in most of what we watch, and we don’t even realize it. House Hunters, Celebrity Kitchen, local news stations—rife, my own so terrible that nightly shootings by teenagers is accepted norm—cartoons, blockbuster musicals where the heroine’s green, but the green stands for neurological difference, and nobody notices. Any horror flick being made stands for trauma, and any comedy we watch contains the pain of another’s outsider experiences.I asked close friends if the concept felt pertinent, capable of eliciting productive conversation pieces that engaged both theme (less important) and nexus (mental health). I was wrong to doubt this community. From odes to Thelma & Louise, Norman Bates, and Breaking Bad, to annotated critiques around Westerns, pool-players, and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Issue Three involves every genre of cinema: old and young, macho and blockbuster vampire love story, rock legends and French films. There are more personal accounts, too, which deftly weave theme into poem’s apex, creating a tunneling effect of verse about vision, and cultural proclivity applied to the everyday. Celebration and critique can walk hand-in-hand as long as you grip those movie glasses tight enough.
What Pratt’s artists are doing here is similar to an extrication process: abscessed tooth, shiny molar of a fate dealt in decay and lonely back-waters of the diseased gum, brought alive again by cut, strategy, and replacement. These ten students aim mightily towards examination of illness, resuscitation of generational trauma, and archival of death and doubt under the intelligent pretext of heroic foundational upheaval. They mix media with grief and paint water from inside the artwork instead of out, and we’re no longer the lonely examiner but the paint fiber. Mix your hands in mud some time and place them against something white. Stand back and point with one hand, saying, “this is me, this is who I’ve broken into.” You’ll understand the point of Issue Four, then.
