A Note from the Editor: Mike Bove

Let us give thanks to Bill Schulz.

I met Bill some years ago, where else, but at a poetry reading. By then Hole in the Head Review had already been going strong for a few years, and I was surprised our paths hadn’t crossed earlier. I liked him immediately, then read his poetry and saw his paintings, and liked him even more.

That Bill thought to ask if I’d join Hole in the Head’s editorial team in 2023 was a great compliment, and I’ve enjoyed working on the journal with him at the wheel. I’ve seen up close his dedication to the arts community, not just in Maine where we’re based, but across the country and around the world.

When he decided to step down as Editor last year, I told him I was interested in stepping up. So here we are. This issue will be our sole offering for 2025, but we’re just getting (re)started. One notable change is that we’ve moved to a biannual format, with a Spring Issue in mid-February and a Fall Issue in mid-August. We’re also pleased that we’re now able to offer payment to contributors.

If you’re a longtime reader, a few things may feel different. But rest assured the new Editorial Staff is committed to continuing Bill’s vision of publishing the strongest work from new and established voices. And don’t worry, he’s not far away.

This change at Hole in the Head comes at a time when the things feel particularly dire for the Arts, and I’ll admit to feeling occasionally useless as a writer myself recently— what can I or any of us do to combat forces of dark power? But like you, I turn to art when I feel that way, and for months these oft-quoted lines from William Carlos Williams’s powerhouse love poem Asphodel, That Greeny Flower have been pumping through my head while I try to make sense of a world that feels increasingly perilous:

               It is difficult

to get the news from poems

yet men die miserably every day

for lack

of what is found there.

These lines come to mind whenever I hear the Arts dismissed as trivial, expendable, or impractical. I repeat them to myself whenever I see yet more funding stripped away from our many crucial arts organizations, whenever I reflect on the lifelong gifts the arts have given to so many: to my students, my friends and family, to me. We might not be able to get the news from poems, but what they offer is equally as important if not more: instructions on how to live thoughtful, attentive lives. Lives lived in attention and thought are rich lives of empathy, beauty, and kindness. I can’t imagine a world without poems, I refuse to, and I agree with Williams that they hold an antidote to misery. We can’t fight death. But misery? We can fight misery.

I hope you find something joyful and worthwhile in this new issue. I think you will. I hope you enjoy Bill Schulz’s striking cover art and fine poems by Betsy Sholl, Dawn Potter, Carol Bachofner, and all our gifted contributors. As you read, I hope you’ll remember what can happen in the silent space a poem makes; there, we grow. Remember too that there are different kinds of silence, some helpful and some destructive. When silence becomes a thing imposed by force or deprivation, it’s time to remember the value of Art, of poetry, of Voice with a capital V. Otherwise, we’re lost. Williams knew that too:

Silence can be complex too,

but you do not get far

with silence.

So, thank you to Bill Schulz. Thank you to the previous Editorial team and the current one. Thanks to our donors and contributors. Thanks to you, our readers.

Here is Hole in the Head Review.

- Mike Bove, Editor