I can't believe that what started
out as a little passion project between two English majors has blossomed into
the tenth issue of our biannual online journal,
Young Ravens Literary Review!
I am honored that so many people
chose to share their creativity with us over the years. In each issue, we
explore a different concept:
Issue 1 Open Theme - Creative
Scintilla
Weebly is a great website for tech
newbies like me, but I struggled to understand how to use it at first and even
today I am still learning how to better clarify my formatting. I am grateful for
everything I have learned in the process and hope that with each issue, the
vision of Young Ravens will improve.
With the release of Issue 10, my
co-editor Elizabeth Pinborough and I ask ourselves the question: What have we
learned from editing ten issues of Young Ravens Literary Review?
Elizabeth:
I am so grateful to be part of this publication. My
favorite part of editing Young Ravens Literary Review for
these past 10 issues has been working with long-time friend and editor Sarah
Page. Sarah writes our gorgeous calls for submissions, and I am always
impressed by how she frames the topic, the many angles from which she sees any
given theme. She knows how to ask important questions and how to invite others
to think creatively.
Reading submissions has revealed how incredibly diverse
the work of poetry is today. Our authors have reinforced the idea that poetry
is a powerful tool for solving the problems of this world. These nodes of
individual creativity spread across cyberspace have the potential to revive a
dying world, to inspire compassion, to accelerate creative problem solving for
some of the truly baffling predicaments of our time, and to inspire the
fellowship of verse.
One of the most valuable lessons about creativity that I
have learned is to just start! Creativity begets more creativity. Everyone is a
creator, and everyone has the power to discuss their feelings, experiences, and
ideas in verse. It refines and challenges you. I find that reading a good poem
almost unconsciously begets a poem in me. If I am attending to the poetry I am
breathing, I can catch a current of another poet's creativity and ride it to a
verse or two of my own. My voice requires the uplift of other poets rhythms to
be possible. I'm grateful to the poets and artists who have enriched our
pages.
Sarah:
Thank you, Elizabeth! I have
greatly enjoyed working with you, too, these last several years! From the
submission process to journal elements and introductions, I rely on your keen
insight to refine each issue to a shine. There have been several times when
I thought that our project would need to be put on hiatus or end because of
challenges that came up in life from health to time constraints, but I am
really glad we did not give up.
I have been humbled and amazed by the beauty
and variety of human creativity our contributors bring to every call for
submissions. Poets, artists and writers take the theme of each issue, almost
like a rough lump of stone, and polish it into a diamond of many-faceted verse
and imagery. I think the most important thing I have learned is that I can
never know or count all the facets of an idea; perception is in the eye of the
beholder. We need each other's minds to truly illuminate the depths and angles
of our universe.
So thank you, dear contributors and
readers, for giving Young Ravens Literary Review ultimate shape and
sparkle!
