Milestones
Does It Have Pockets is officially one year old.
And what a year it has been. Last year, when the idea of DIHP crept up and nipped at my ear, I sat back and worried. It had been five years since I’d helmed a magazine. Was the time right? What if no one wanted another magazine? What if things had changed in that half decade so much that I no longer had the skills to do justice to the writers? Most importantly, what if I couldn’t find that magic again? There were a lot of reasons to shove the little dream of DIHP back down into the depths and busy myself with something else.
But there are rarely engraved invitations for our leaps into the unknown. So last May, I swallowed my apprehension and called my invaluable, former assistant editor, Angela Kubinec. Ang? I asked. Are you ready to try this again? The end of the last iteration had been a sudden, and as with so many sudden things, painful. I knew I had to build a team, but could I? Could I really be fortunate enough to find another beautiful group of writers, thinkers, creatives to build something with me?
Shortly after Ang agreed to once again don an editorial apron, I began to reach out to writers to let them know the mess I’d scrambled up. I reached out to Anne Anthony to reconnect, asking shyly if she’d like to send some work. She agreed, but what she really wanted, she replied, was to join us. An artist and a writer? I couldn’t believe my luck. A couple months later, we reached out to Grant Shimmin, a former contributor and gorgeous poet, who became our first international staffer. Another former contributor and tremendous writer, Jody Goch, joined us from Germany last summer. And Grey Litaker helps us through our heavier slush piles when he can from wherever he is (currently, I’m told, on a boat). I must’ve done something amazing in a past life to have been able to gather them all into one place.
I have always felt that the best creative groups coalesce organically, in a symbiotic sort of way. And I am over the moon each time I think about the DIHP staff — wry, witty, smart, challenging, and game to create a sort of pocket family. Willing to think and talk and argue and change and be changed, their intelligence, compassion, and experience have poured into the magazine. And so while Does It Have Pockets remains my dream, it has also become something else entirely. (There’s a metaphor in there somewhere.)
I couldn’t be more grateful. And humbled.
This month’s issue is incredibly special to us: Showcasing the beauty of the unseamly, we’ve got emails and poems and fabric; we’ve got allegory and simile and parody; we’ve got you and us and this publication. Thank you for coming along on this journey. Thanks to you, dear readers, writers, & friends, our hearts and are pockets are spilling with beauty.
Fiction
We’re thrilled to welcome back Will Willoughby, whose second Pockets contribution is “While I Have You,” a keen, epistolary glimpse into the arena of corporate culture with a right hook of an ending. Jude Pott’s “For sale, one womb, unused. Buyer collects.” is a weighty flash, aching and poetic, with just a smidgen of hope. In three starkly gorgeous short flashes from Eliana Megerman, we observe a body’s disappearing act, compare hearts to mangos, and visit the decisions made at little lending libraries. It’s the end of the world (or is it?) in Jessica R Cull’s lush, surreal beauty, “This Too May Kill Us.” And on the lighter side, Susan R. Morritt files a zinging satire where we “Behold! The Wrath of Gordon.”
Poetry
Christian Hanz Lozada joins us with two short, dense poems, with a stinging reminder “shame is chronicled in the oral tradition.” Two more poems from John Grey reveal the churn of daily life, an familiar exchanges where, “To each other / we’re the nightly news.” Gripping and hopeful, a four-poem cycle from Trish Hopkinson gives us an intimate seat alongside “a mother and son alone but for the hum / of machines and shuffling of strangers.” D Larissa Peters’ two poems are full of sound and smell and feel and taste and longing: “You’re my dandelion wish.” Two unwavering poems from Christina Ruotolo entwine nostalgia and trauma in myriad ways. And finally, two soft, odic poems from Joan Mazza, on the joys of vessels – “Let every container be filled with color” -- and notebooks, round out this month’s poetry offerings.
Creative Nonfiction
In a breathtaking dichotomy, Susan T. Landry’s May CNF is two landscapes from one expert painter or one expert landscape by two painters, but perhaps best explained by Anne asking, “How’d my hand come to rest on my heart while reading this?” This month’s second CNF piece is Debbie Feit’s wry and innovatively-framed prescription, “Take Two and Call Your Therapist in the Mourning:
Artwork
Multi-disciplinary artist Suzi Banks Baum joins us this month with her lush, tactile Story Cloth project. As she writes, “My Story Cloth reflects how I keep time with my needle.” A blend of story and the interconnected fabric of life, we’re deeply honored to present these pieces to you on our first birthday.
One Last Note
The May graphic on our home page comes courtesy of North Carolina artist, Loren Pease, who paints beautiful and bold murals. Thank you, Loren, for allowing us to share your art. To see more of her work, visit her website: https://sweetpease.com/.
Until June,
XO
