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Introduction

When thinking about the everyday writer’s place in the public—in all of it: the culture, the discourse, the politics, and so on—discouragement can easily set in. From Plato to Auden and all the way up to library bans and chatbots, we’re in a fraught position. And if your mind wanders first to the longstanding philosophical retorts (as mine does), there’s a lot to say in response: screeds about all art being public and political, or about legendary writers changing the world, pens defeating swords and the forms realizing themselves wholly and so on. All of which is nice.

Instead, for this Caretaking edition of Ninth Letter, we wanted to engage many of these concerns but from a personal vantage that, almost contradictorily, resisted personal concerns. We wanted pieces that gave care to others or sought care in the other. And in that process, we turned down many incredible pieces that clearly cared: sometimes for some larger concern, often for the self. But what’s here is at least one part of an expressive algebra, sometimes fulfilled and balanced but, in other important ways, also left unanswered. And still, we were surprised by the range of caregiving in this edition: for the sick and for the lonely, in natural and personal disasters, out in a crowd or in the comfort (or not) of home. These poems, essays, and stories look out at the other and respond with care, or try to, or attempt to reach out for it.

Our team of young editors assumed, from the first to the last submission received, that these writers were giving and taking care in these shared moments of expression. But these editors, too, made the same gestures in their attentiveness. It wouldn’t be possible without them.

—Zachariah McVicker

Poetry

Chiara Di Lello
No Backsies

Kristina Erny
The Aliens Watch the Mother Dream

Danielle Garland
The Marriage is Survived by Both a Husband and a Wife

Meghan Kemp-Gee
I plant runner beans on the eighth floor

Ugochukwu Damian Okpara
Strangers at a Bar in Chicago

Ivy Raff
Destiny is Destiny

Konstantin N. Rega
A Quiet Passing [I]
A Quiet Passing [II]

Shana Ross
For All Mankind

Kate Stoltzfus
On (Still Not) Coming Out

Staff

Web Editor
Zachariah McVicker

Editorial Assistants
Genevieve Christon, Kylie Corral, Ava Delariman, Trace Edwards, Emily Hackett, Payton Jarzyna, Zoe Lavigne, Jenn Lee, Alex Lim, Ashley Lucken, Cynthia Mu, Elizabeth Sheluga, Jadyne Stachowiak, Sara Starecheski, Luke Vickery, Matthew Wu, Anna Zellak