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I was convinced that I could handle it all including healing myself.
On the eve of Malaysia’s first lockdown last year, a dull ache pulsed on the left side of my neck like an omen. The discomfort soon bloomed from the base of my skull to my shoulder blade, before slowly coursing its way through my arm. But I muffled my unease by focusing on a world under viral assault. The pandemic made it easier to quiet my own issues, both to myself and to everyone else.
Edging toward breaking point, and the accompanying frustration at a body that lets me down, has become a recurring event in my pandemic year. The most alarming sensation was a loss of feeling in my left arm, which began one night while reading before bed. Two months after that first hint of pain, it was only the shadowy fear of paralysis or nerve damage that compelled me to see a doctor. My reluctance relied on the prickly belief that our anatomies and minds can withstand whatever we want to put them through. But they can’t.
Aisha Hassan is a Malaysian writer and entrepreneur. Her fiction and journalism have appeared in publications such as Quartz, Harper s Bazaar Malaysia, Barren Magazine, and XRAY Literary Magazine. She is the co-founder of Dia Guild, an e-commerce platform that supports artisanship, and also works for a charitable foundation in Malaysia. She has a BA in English Language & Literature from the University of Oxford and a Masters in Journalism from Columbia University. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram @aishabhassan.
EcoTheo Review, and
Tar River Poetry. An Appalachian poet living in West Virginia, she has also lived in Ireland and England. Her website is vcmccabe.com.
INTRODUCTION
Poetry, like any form of art, is as subjective in creation as it is in reception. There is no one way to be a poet. Our reasons and methods for writing vary, shaped by our respective experiences and imaginations. As an autodidactic poet with a day job, my path to poetry and publication diverged greatly from academically trained and funded writers. What we do have in common is a dedication to the practice of poetry.
Lannie Stabile
(she/her), a queer Detroiter, is the winner of OutWrite’s 2020 Chapbook Competition in Poetry; the winning chapbook,
Strange Furniture, is out with Neon Hemlock Press. She is also a back-to-back finalist for the 2019/2020 and 2020/2021 Glass Chapbook Series and back-to-back semifinalist for the Button Poetry 2018 and 2019 Chapbook Contests. Lannie currently holds the position of Managing Editor at
Barren Magazine and is a member of the MMPR Collective. Find her on Twitter @LannieStabile.
INTRODUCTION
Poetry is always teaching me something. When I became an editor with
Barren Magazine, I quickly realized reading someone else’s art vastly improved my own. Submitters introduced me to forms I never knew existed and made me want to try my own hand at it. Like pantoums. I didn’t know what the hell a pantoum was until I read one in the slush pile.