Emily Dickinson wrote, “The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.” I don’t know about all of you, but I think I need to print this quote in 18 point bold font and tape it to the back of my door before I rush out of the house in the morning. I need to tape it to my dashboard, to my mirror, to my laptop. Especially my laptop. This is a line that has been analyzed and dissected by many, but to me it is simply a reminder. It is a reminder that we MUST relax and quiet our minds in order to experience miracles. Miracles won’t come through an atmosphere of struggle, manipulation, or fear.So, how to relax? How to quiet the mind? How to open the soul? For me it’s beating a retreat, finding a little bit of solitude, curling up with some solid fiction. Nothing in this world opens my heart more than excellent prose.
And this month’s issue is loaded with excellent prose. Connotation Press is proud to feature Louis Armand, who shows us what language can do, transporting us back in time with “The Eye of the Train.” Also featured is Tony Press, who reveals the power of memory in “Always Present, Always Watching.”
Also in this talent-packed issue, Levi Andrew Noe makes the “moon bloom like a poppy” in his hypnotic pieces “Coyote’s Last Days,” and “Writers Make Terrible Partners.” Good Druthers fascinates, rolling “through infinite emotions in one second” with “The Face,” “Papa-Con,” and “This Is An Emergency.” Finally, Craig Fishbane impresses with his range, showing the face of loneliness in “Arugam Bay,” then exposing us with biting satire in “The Slur,” and “Excerpts from the Common Core Hip Hop Regents Exam.”
I hope these stories leave you as ecstatic as they left me.
