Letter from the Editor July
July 6th, 2010 by Olga Rosales
The Gulf coast, Arizona's Immigration Law, Oscar Grant, Health Care Reform(?), my ex-boyfriend, your ex-girlfriend, Haitian Orphans... orphans, the rich, the poor, etc. etc. Individual issues, maybe, or maybe not. As a poet, I know that I've woven these topics into verse almost as if they were all one run-on breath of life. And that's my right as a poet. I can write out my frustration about said topics or I can simply listen to someone else's interpretation of the topics and know that I'm not the only that feels so small. I know that I'm not the only one who writes as if it were my only right left.
As poets, we know that there is someone writing it better than us. The truth, we don't write to 'win', we don't even write to end the conversation, rather we write because we have to. We write because we want to continue a legacy of people who saw the box of society, took one step back and wrote about it from the outside. We write because we believe Hues, Whitman, and Neruda are not the last poets. We write because although they might have inspired us, poetry did not die with them. We, as people who must write, are still creating verse in a way you've never read, you just have to be willing to listen.
We write in the midst of propaganda, unfathomable catastrophes, and personal traumas, that you can't imagine, or maybe you can. We write about these things in an effort to make sense of it all. We write because although someone else has already said it, our souls can not survive without speech woven into stanza.
Vetted Word is my soul space. With all my love, I welcome you to that space.
Yours truly,
Olga Rosales
Editor in Chief
Vetted Word
