Letter from the Editor

Dear Barnstorm Readers,

Recently I returned to campus for the first time since term ended in May, ready for my second year in the MFA program at the University of New Hampshire. I was overjoyed to see my cohort again. To be back in close community with those who value the arts as much as I did lifted a veil I didn’t know had descended.

As that first pre-workshop conversation with my peers evolved, I realized that many of those in the room, like me, had been having a hard time writing during the summer. On top of the usual stressors of finding enough time to work, eat, sleep, and get outside, all of us had been feeling the weight of another burden. Namely: that the systems of power that we operate within have turned resolutely away from the arts, sending a clear message to the artist—the writer, poet, painter, or musician—that our work doesn’t matter. 

Thanks in large part to the current U.S. administration, universities across the country have been tightening their purse strings. I recently spoke with Christopher Coake, a friend and mentor from my undergrad who told me about the grim ordeal of driving to the meeting that would determine whether the MFA program that he runs at the University of Nevada, Reno was to be shut down (thankfully it wasn’t, but only just). Our own MFA program lost much of its funding this year, which was a huge blow to myself and others who were depending on assistantships, not just for the practical necessity of having enough money to live, but for the reassurance that our work is valued by someone other than ourselves. 

We have many very good reasons not to write. Self-expression exists somewhere higher on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs than, say, earning the money to feed and house oneself. Likewise, universities will never be short of reasons to cut funding to creative writing programs. It’s easy to justify putting off funding the arts for a year or two, just until the economy recovers, just until the administration changes, or just until things settle down.

But the arts, and the human connections we make through the arts, are the essential bedrock of humanity. That buoying elation we feel when we catch a glimpse into another’s soul through prose or poetry or painting is biologically wired into us. The arts are not just a frivolous pastime, they’re a biological necessity. They’re the way our species reasserts its value on this earth and its strength as a connected whole. The arts keep our species going by providing a small but essential answer to the question, What is this all for? While we need our jobs to survive, we need the arts to live. 

I want to encourage my readers not to believe the message that there isn’t enough space in our lives for the arts. I want to encourage my university not to succumb to the illusion that the arts aren’t an essential part of our institution. 

I’m afraid for the future of the arts in this country and at my university. And yet, the pieces in this volume imbued me with hope. They serve as a reminder that there are people out there, many, many people, who understand the necessity of story. I was profoundly moved by the thoughtful exploration of faith in Joe Baumann’s “Found.” I was buoyed and crushed by the opposing tensions of Robert Fanning’s “fjall // mountain.” And I was brought to tears by the honesty and authenticity of Margaret Limone’s “Window Watching.” Because good art makes you feel, the way these stirring works made me feel. The arts set a fire alight in your heart. They make you cry. They instill you with that oh-so-fine soaring sensation that makes you think, Yes, this. 

So it is with hope that I welcome you all to Volume 17 of Barnstorm. Happy reading. 

Warmly,

Aspen Kidd

Editor-in-Chief