This is our 21st issue and our FIVE year anniversary!!! Wow!
So much has happened in the past five years–in some ways, I feel like a different person. When I started this journal on a whim, I felt like I had endless energy and enthusiasm. I won’t lie and say that I have the same amount of energy as I did back then. I have entered middle age now, and there seems to be quite a shift in life, whether I want it or not. However, editing The Indianapolis Review through all of this change has been an anchor for me and kept me connected to poets and artists, and for that, I am grateful.
Thank you to our amazing readers and contributors. I am still stunned by the quality of the submissions we receive. It’s an honor to publish so many incredible poets!
I am also thrilled that we continually receive work from innovative artists and visual poets! You can see some great examples of that hybridity with Tana Oshima’s work in this issue and also Luisa A. Igloria’s graphic book review.
This is also our next to last issue for our special feature on the altars / spiritual spaces of writers and artists. We have one more special feature on altars in the fall. If you are interested in contributing, please see our submission guidelines. If you have any questions, email us at theindianapolisreview@gmail.com
The 3 altars featured in this issue cover a range of purposes from honoring ancestors and connecting with family members who are deceased and living, to working through the trauma of certain relationships. I found the stories of each of these altars to be compelling and inspirational for my own practices.
It seems I am always thinking about ancestors and origin, and I have been lucky to spend quite a bit of time with family members this summer and be in those locations that make up my inner landscape. As I put the final finishing touches on this issue, I was traveling among those places, which are outside of Indianapolis but within Indiana, for the most part (the beach I normally go to on Lake Michigan is, in fact, in Michigan, but it’s very close to Indiana). Anyhow, I end this with an appreciation for the beauty that does exist in this area of the country, an awareness of origin and ancestor, and a remembrance that life quickly passes us all.
Natalie Solmer
Editor-In-Chief
The Indianapolis Review
July 2022, Indianapolis