Almost 4 years ago, I decided to learn a second language. Early in the process, I had to practice making sounds that don’t exist in English… and it was so_much_fun. In this way and in others, learning a new language made me pay closer attention to my first language. More specifically, it made me examine the sound of English in a new way.
In my last year of undergrad, as an English major, I had to take critical theory and I have to say, de Saussure almost ruined my life. When I realized that words themselves have no inherent meaning, that they are just things, symbols that we project meaning onto… I had an existential crisis: Well, then what in the world am I writing for?!
Eventually, I got over it… and since then, in reading and thinking and talking about language, I’ve come across an idea that brought me back to those critical theorists: Can there be inherent meaning in sound?
And… I don’t know.
A cry of pain? A cry of pleasure?
Can pleasure itself be meaning?
I like the sound of V, the way it feels in my mouth. It’s fun. This anthology — the process of it — was fun. Perhaps that is meaningful enough.
—Shannon, editor
V: An Anthology of Poetry available here.
Picture Show Press 