THE BeZINE: Vol. 5, Issue 2, Theme: Sustainability, Subtheme: Readers and Writers Speak Out on Abuse
June 15, 2018
“Having the right priorities in a wrong world will humble you with a journey that only love can sustain.” Bryant McGill, Simple Reminders: Inspiration for Living Your Best Life
As I sorted through the sustainability submissions for this issue, I was struck by two things: a preponderance of both love and sadness. The love with which so many of us – I’d like to think most of us – have for this planet, its natural beauties, and its voluptuous generosities and a sadness for the issues we largely lay at the feet of unenlightened irresponsible corporate and government policies. The former combined with our willingness to speak up and speak out gives me hope that we will overcome the profound challenges of our day. We have after all the power to unite our voices, vote with our dollars, and refuse to play the games.
You’ll find here this quarter a collection of works on nature and the environment that encourages and admonishes, that makes love to the earth and its natural beauties, that shares frustrations and anger, and that hearten us with their very breath of awareness.
Special thanks to team member, Priscilla Galasso, for our lovely cover photo this quarter.
We’ve also included a profoundly moving collection of work on abuse, mainly domestic. This section is published in response to reader requests and together the collection affirms courage and provides confirmation, insight and information. We are honored to have England’s Emergency Poet, Deborah Alma, introduce this section. Deborah is the editor of #MeToo, rallying against sexual assault and harassment, a women’s poetry anthology.
We welcome contributions from all over the world and know that you will appreciate the work of our new guest contributors (writers, photographers, and artists) this month as well as old friends and our core team members. Please support them with your “likes” and comments. This year in October we plan to nominate writers (guests, not team members) for Pushcart, so do please leave notes to let us know your faves. Thank you!
In closing, once again I share this quotation (as I did in the last edition of The BeZine) from L.R. Knots. It seems to encapsulate the best rallying cry for our times.
“Do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world.
All things break. And all things can be mended.
Not with time, as they say, but with intention.
So go. Love intentionally, extravagantly, unconditionally.
The broken world waits in darkness for the light that is you.”
—Author and counselor, L.R. Knost
In the spirit of peace, love (respect), and community
and on behalf of The Bardo Group Bequines,
Jamie Dedes
Founding and Managing Editor, The BeZine
TABLE OF CONTENTS
How to read this issue of THE BeZINE:You can read each piece individually by clicking the links in the Table of Contents.
To learn more about our guests contributors, please link HERE.
To learn more about our core team members, please link HERE.
NATURE and SUSTAINABILITY
SPECIAL FEATURE
What Fossil Fuels and Factor Farms Have in Common / Hint: They’re both issues of environmental injustice, Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director of Food & Water Watch and Food and Water Action, Originally published in Yes! Magazine
BeATTITUDES
Crossing the Great Divide, John Anstie
Shkinah III: My beloved whispers in my ear, Michael Dickel
Insatiable =/= Sustantable, Corina Ravenscraft
Sustain What?, Steve Wiencek
POETRY and ART/PHOTOGRAPHY
Hypocrite DespOILer, Gary W. Bowers
Earthquake and devastation, Michael Dickel
Multiplying Media, four poems, Michael Dickel
Gertrude’s Poem, Michael Dickel
Sustainability Should Be Our Creed, Mark Andrew Heathcote
When NASA Finishes Mining & Carbon Footprint, Zoë Sîobhan Howarth-Lowe
Clear the Brush, Ursula Jacobs
Climate Changes, Patricia Leighton
Life Eternal, Patricia Leighton
Gifts to the Poet’s Newborn Child, Patricia Leighton
Species Sustainability, Carolyn O’Connell
Evil Ones, Eliza Segiet
ABUSE and HOPE
We all know the wisdoms around why it is so important to speak up about any form of abuse; the reasons are many and various. But often our abusers are close to us, members of our own family or community and so speaking out is a great act of bravery. It may be difficult because we may also carry feelings of guilt, responsibility or shame. But if we can overcome such strong reasons to be silent, we are hugely empowered; we are made stronger by facing our fears.
It can also help to turn the abuse into a narrative that distances us from the pain in each retelling; an act that helps us to understand, to process and then to move beyond it; and in an act of alchemy to turn it into the piece of art that is the poem; that gives us gold out of the dirt. We ourselves as writer are transformed by it and for those who come after as readers, the work can hold out its hand from those who have been there before, who have worked something out for us.
To read the stories and poetry of those who have been abused can also act as a warning or a flag that says ‘Yes this IS abuse. Take care! This is how I made myself safe or sane again.’
– Deborah Alma, Poet and Editor
#MeToo Anthology, The Back Story, Deborah Alma, poems by Sheila Jacob, Jane Commane, and Roberta Beary, and an introduction to Persephone’s Daughters
Hell Prefers Unaware, Susie Clevenger
Never Had a Chance, Isadora de la Vega
a man, a woman and a stick, Jamie Dedes
Closed Doors to Hotel Rooms, Michael Dickel
When Sexual Harassment Goes Public, Michael Watson
SPECIAL FEATURE
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ALL WORKS IN “THE BEZINE” ©2018 BY THE AUTHOR / CREATOR
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