Editor's note
Dear Reader,
I regret to inform you that our Editor-in-Chief, Patricia Caspers, who was an award-winning journalist in a past life and usually writes gorgeous essays to introduce these issues at launch, has nothing in her brain right now except running for Placer Union High School District Trustee, Area 3. Therefore, you’re stuck with whatever this is by Yours Truly.
(Patricia, thank you in advance for approving this message. #cheeky)
Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey has been quite the sensation this summer, racking up nearly $1.6 billion in box office sales as of the publication of this issue. Although its revenue has yet to come in any part from my wallet, I know the story it’s based on, and its homecoming theme is relevant to what’s been on my mind a lot lately.
Patricia says on her campaign website that her family has resided in Placer County for four generations. My family, on the other hand, has been less rooted. My grandparents on both sides were from Hunan Province in southern, inland China. My parents are from Jiangsu Province, mid-south and on the coast. I was born in Pennsylvania but relocated to New Jersey when I was less than a year old, living in the notorious Jersey Shore state until I went to college. In 2017, I moved to Philadelphia for my PhD and stayed put after graduating last year, job-hunting as my savings have slipped out of my bank account like fine sand.
For a while, I didn’t want to look too far for employment post-graduation. I wanted to keep the cozy studio I’ve lived in since 2019 and had just found the motivation to deep clean, declutter, and rearrange into a “real” home. After years of “meh, I can live with [insert one of many small messes]” while I focused on being a student, I wanted to actively enjoy the space, finally. I even told myself the apartment would be worth making a daily commute to New York for if I found work there, such was my reluctance to move. Oof.
Just as I’d started to accept—and act on—probably having to change zip codes for work, I had the excellent fortune of receiving a job offer that will keep me local a while longer. For now, my fears about packing up all my stuff, figuring out what to do with my furniture, finding a subletter to finish my lease, and starting over in a new city have been deferred. I know, I know, I shouldn’t let fear hold me back. All I can say is, I trust that when the right time comes, I’ll grow (or snap) out of it.
It’s an irony, and/or a sign of the privilege they gave me, that I should come from adventurous parents – each the only one of their siblings to leave their homeland to pursue a new, uncertain life as an immigrant. When talking about visiting China, my parents say “回国 (huí guó)” – “returning to the Country.” This is a phrase I’ll never rightly be able to use for myself, even though I’ve heard them say it many times without hesitation. I sound so strange to my own ears when I talk about “going to China” rather than “回国,” as if the destination is completely foreign to who and what I am. Politics aside, it’s complicated grappling with this as it relates to where I’m “from” – a common rumination among descendants of immigrants, especially people of color in Western countries.
In an essay for the Paris Review, Odyssey translator Emily Wilson writes about how the epic helps her “think about home, less as a particular place than as a state of mind.” There’s also the popular phrase, “home is where the heart is.” I think home is a combination of mind and heart. (How [in]separable those two entities are, well, that’s a discussion for another day.) It starts with associating a number and a strange front door with familiar shoes just inside. It becomes a waft of kitchen smells, voices, and memories, longed for and returned to in multiple ways. Perhaps a place doesn’t truly become a home until I’m ready to leave it, its essence so embedded in my psyche that its physical structure is no longer of import.
We often refer to our creative work as having found homes in literary journals. Whether West Trestle Review remains the only home for them, or if they go on to find other dwellings (or already have!), we are honored to host the poems in this issue by Melinda Clemmons, Susan Cohen, Jeni De La O, Sierra Elman, Christa Fairbrother, H. E. Fisher, Calynn Liong Harris, Erin Coughlin Hollowell, Luisa Caycedo-Kimura, Hilary King, Amy Miller, Alexis Raymond, Joannie Stangeland, Rita Tiwari, Kailah Trice, Melody Wilson, and Hanyi Zhou, along with cover art by L. I. Henley.
May these poems make you feel at home – a mindset or heart-set or anything in between where, no matter your physical location, you feel welcomed in and welcomed back anytime.
Yours,
Katherine Huang
Poetry Editor
I regret to inform you that our Editor-in-Chief, Patricia Caspers, who was an award-winning journalist in a past life and usually writes gorgeous essays to introduce these issues at launch, has nothing in her brain right now except running for Placer Union High School District Trustee, Area 3. Therefore, you’re stuck with whatever this is by Yours Truly.
(Patricia, thank you in advance for approving this message. #cheeky)
Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey has been quite the sensation this summer, racking up nearly $1.6 billion in box office sales as of the publication of this issue. Although its revenue has yet to come in any part from my wallet, I know the story it’s based on, and its homecoming theme is relevant to what’s been on my mind a lot lately.
Patricia says on her campaign website that her family has resided in Placer County for four generations. My family, on the other hand, has been less rooted. My grandparents on both sides were from Hunan Province in southern, inland China. My parents are from Jiangsu Province, mid-south and on the coast. I was born in Pennsylvania but relocated to New Jersey when I was less than a year old, living in the notorious Jersey Shore state until I went to college. In 2017, I moved to Philadelphia for my PhD and stayed put after graduating last year, job-hunting as my savings have slipped out of my bank account like fine sand.
For a while, I didn’t want to look too far for employment post-graduation. I wanted to keep the cozy studio I’ve lived in since 2019 and had just found the motivation to deep clean, declutter, and rearrange into a “real” home. After years of “meh, I can live with [insert one of many small messes]” while I focused on being a student, I wanted to actively enjoy the space, finally. I even told myself the apartment would be worth making a daily commute to New York for if I found work there, such was my reluctance to move. Oof.
Just as I’d started to accept—and act on—probably having to change zip codes for work, I had the excellent fortune of receiving a job offer that will keep me local a while longer. For now, my fears about packing up all my stuff, figuring out what to do with my furniture, finding a subletter to finish my lease, and starting over in a new city have been deferred. I know, I know, I shouldn’t let fear hold me back. All I can say is, I trust that when the right time comes, I’ll grow (or snap) out of it.
It’s an irony, and/or a sign of the privilege they gave me, that I should come from adventurous parents – each the only one of their siblings to leave their homeland to pursue a new, uncertain life as an immigrant. When talking about visiting China, my parents say “回国 (huí guó)” – “returning to the Country.” This is a phrase I’ll never rightly be able to use for myself, even though I’ve heard them say it many times without hesitation. I sound so strange to my own ears when I talk about “going to China” rather than “回国,” as if the destination is completely foreign to who and what I am. Politics aside, it’s complicated grappling with this as it relates to where I’m “from” – a common rumination among descendants of immigrants, especially people of color in Western countries.
In an essay for the Paris Review, Odyssey translator Emily Wilson writes about how the epic helps her “think about home, less as a particular place than as a state of mind.” There’s also the popular phrase, “home is where the heart is.” I think home is a combination of mind and heart. (How [in]separable those two entities are, well, that’s a discussion for another day.) It starts with associating a number and a strange front door with familiar shoes just inside. It becomes a waft of kitchen smells, voices, and memories, longed for and returned to in multiple ways. Perhaps a place doesn’t truly become a home until I’m ready to leave it, its essence so embedded in my psyche that its physical structure is no longer of import.
We often refer to our creative work as having found homes in literary journals. Whether West Trestle Review remains the only home for them, or if they go on to find other dwellings (or already have!), we are honored to host the poems in this issue by Melinda Clemmons, Susan Cohen, Jeni De La O, Sierra Elman, Christa Fairbrother, H. E. Fisher, Calynn Liong Harris, Erin Coughlin Hollowell, Luisa Caycedo-Kimura, Hilary King, Amy Miller, Alexis Raymond, Joannie Stangeland, Rita Tiwari, Kailah Trice, Melody Wilson, and Hanyi Zhou, along with cover art by L. I. Henley.
May these poems make you feel at home – a mindset or heart-set or anything in between where, no matter your physical location, you feel welcomed in and welcomed back anytime.
Yours,
Katherine Huang
Poetry Editor
|
 |
Support the work of women and non-binary poets by making a donation today to West Trestle Review. For more information about West Trestle Review's finances, see our About page.