A small globe entitled, “state of the world,” encircled by red spikes, symbol of Covid-19, is the central metaphor around which variants spin off in ever widening circles for 220 pages.  Utilizing a myriad of styles and mediums, artists and writers draw us into a Dada world, the world we are living in, like nothing else I’ve seen does.

We see mages of garbage washed up from the water, (”Back Then” (2), “It always comes In  Plastic,” (poem 69), a cracked doll head says, “Toxic fumes kill, (5),” beneath an old fashioned TV, a sign reads, “there is no remote”(15), Congress “approves trillion dollar war budget” followed by “tomorrow’s heat is gonna be a / Record breaker,” reports the news, (“Meta-Irony” 20)… just a few selections, a metaphoric timeline taking us back to when we began to (“kill) the future…no one will be left to toll the bells” (“This Poem Doesn’t Want to Talk About the War” (10).

The irony of a band aid placed on impenetrable smoke underscores our feeble attempts to halt what’s happening to our planet, “Ouch” (60). And who is to blame? An invisible finger is continually pointed at us: “(we) are the toxicity,” “Toxicity” (64) exclaims every image and word in this incredible anthology. We are “They,” employing the current non-binary use of this pronoun to indict all of us, “13 Ways of looking at they” (125).

“Can’t breathe” (66) is juxtaposed later with “Art as Life,” (87), a poem showing how the writer uses poetry and music to help her breathe “cool fresh air” to survive. All isn’t lost. Yet. There is a glimmer of hope in her soul.

So too, a writer, fed up with politicians talking about what they will do for us, of our great future, the pointlessness of their propaganda, gets angry, and is thrown out into the street. There he finds hope in people he can count on, believe “it is not yet the end as we know it;” we have not yet spiraled all the way down, “Not Yet Zero,” (53).

I chose to conclude on this lingering feeling of hope, to believe that we, humanity, still have a chance, rather than to end on a note of doom.

Only a small sample of the incredible work in this journal is provided, to give you an idea of what the editors have accomplished, to urge you to get a copy; it will blow your mind. Maybe motivate you to do something, any small something, to stop us from reaching ground zero.

(A disclaimer: I am one of the more than 200 contributors with a poem included in this issue)