Poiesis

Next Steps, New Beginnings

Dedicated to José Andrés, founder of World Central Kitchen, and to all those who risk their own lives providing aid to others in times of catastrophe.

What does it mean to begin, to make our next step a true beginning, one in which we are not just repeating ourselves but instead are introducing something radically new into the world?

In this issue of the POIESIS journal, Gaza is never far from mind. The poems remembering Rachel Corrie in the journal were inspired by the acts of a young woman who was herself dedicated to breaking the cycle of violence. She went to Gaza to testify that another way is possible. We know that she was broken, broken by the Israeli bulldozer which buried her in Gaza. Can the poems become a memorial to her, one which interrupts us in our lives and helps us begin again in a new way? Remembering would then be a true beginning.