Editor’s Notes

com·mu·ni·ty /kəˈmyo͞onədē/ noun

1. a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common. “the scientific community”
2. a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals. “the sense of community that organized religion can provide”

Time seemed to pass differently in 2020. It’s hard to grasp that the year started with Australia on fire, the assassination of an Iranian strongman, Impeachment I, and the whispers of a global pandemic. The planet closed for business and the earth was quiet for a time outside the struggling hospitals, while tech behemoths hoovered up cash from our desire for connection. And on those media feeds the world watched in live disgust as American policemen killed George Floyd and it was quiet no more. There was more extreme weather, food lines stretched for miles, and Americans voted in masks in the largest and most divisive election in modern history. The prevalent 2020 meme is a dumpster fire, but it should, perhaps, be a screen. What has happened in our isolation is the implosion of media and content, dragging us down little internet rabbit holes.

It feels ironic and surreal to write Editor’s Notes for the Community Issue when the world just watched the insurrection at the Capitol in rapt horror, most of us on feeds. And the divisiveness is not over and it’s not going to be over anytime soon, especially if we don’t stop to notice our own complicity. The last United States election, while not particularly close, was close enough to be a bit surprising and the invective and emotion and shaming and blaming ran high on both sides: the “elites,” the “deplorables,” the “other,” are but a few.  

All of it is media fodder: Twitter and Facebook, Signal and Telegram, Fox News and CNN, all driving algorithmic narratives designed to keep users clicking and watching in their own information universes. In short, driving the confirmation bias that divided a democratic nation so effortlessly and remorselessly. Homo sapiens are, after all, biologically drawn to our “tribes,” both something that media uses for economic gain and a reason that SARS-CoV-2 has been so devastating.

Community is a way of defining reality. At one time, the community was the group that showed up in the village square to shop. Or maybe a community was a group who immigrated from a certain region and settled in a new region because of similar traditions. Community can be united by shared interests: sports, literary, scientific. But one thing guaranteed in human evolution is that change is constant, Homo Sapiens are not evolutionarily stagnant. As our self-identities shift in a global economy, the idea of community also evolves.

It seems at this time in our cultural history, the definition of “community” has become fluid. The idea of community can be subsumed by a larger cultural reality. For example, movements like Black Lives Matter have a way of defining a cultural reality whose narrative can be manipulated into running in conflict with a predetermined perception of culture.

This revelation is not born of a disdain for traditionalism, but rather an observation of cultural trends. Community may be considered “family, friends, and colleagues,” but the diversity of America means that “[t]oday, a community is no longer only linked to a physical place or a group of people who all know each other, all sharing the same ideals, goals or interests. We all build and nurture our own, unique group of people… a web of loose ties that sometimes coexist in parallel worlds, sometimes brush alongside each other and other times come together as one. …community and the sense of belonging that comes with it is not always black and white. It can be unique to you and your needs and at the end of the day it always comes down to the human connections you make… a hand-full of people that can feel like home.” 

Words can incite and inflame, but words can also build poems and stories and shared histories, reminding us that our species shares more than divides us. We love our families, we make art, we innovate, we solve problems. While we can’t claim that all art appeals to all people, we can say that the world is a little more grayscale than crystal clear and we can listen better when we are not talking. The authors in these pages have done that: observed their worlds and shared them with you, the reader. If they touched you, let them know because we need to hear each other. Authors and artists shared pieces about the new definition of community, the meditative nature of art, the philosophy of love, connections with both ancestors and children, the necessity of building societal bridges. This issue is in honor of and dedicated to a member of the Berkeley Poets Workshop & Press circa 1980s, poet and good friend, late Dr. Marilee Richards.

As always, we thank our readers and contributors and are happy to be part of a supportive literary and artistic community.  Sisyphus is read in 147 countries and counting.