NASA Photo (James Webb Telescope)
“The old world is dying, and the new
world struggles to be born: now is
the time of monsters.”
Antonio Gramsci, Prison Notebooks (1935)
Dear Reader,
Welcome to the premier edition of Headwind!
Headwind is a new literary journal featuring interviews, poetry, art, reviews, and essays. We present artists, activists, prisoners, writers, immigrants, scientists, cultural icons, scholars, and working people, each bringing a unique perspective to the pages of this journal, each challenging our readers to think beyond the dogma of the old world and recognize the monsters that hover between the old and new.
Our purpose is to inform, inspire, and promote change; to help you become aware of what’s already a fundamental part of you. We provide the imagery, the conversation, the stories, and hope you will join us in a spirit of community.
Science and art are often viewed as opposites. In this issue, art and science intersect in the investigation, discovery, and portrayal of our world. As artists translate concepts into images and scientists create data from images, Headwind showcases a science writer with “the soul of a poet,” a scientist who illustrates the artistry and beauty of the mundane under a microscope, and ten poets who illuminate our world in arrays of imagery.
Headwind presents some of the most poignant voices of our time. We speak with Ferris Jabr, author of Becoming Earth: How Our Planet Came to Life. In his remarkable new book, Mr. Jabr describes sending water and bacteria upward to create rain; microbial life breaking down rock, forging Earth’s minerals and forming continents; plankton sweeping across the Sahara desert to form limestone building blocks of the Great Pyramid of Giza and the Colosseum — life accommodating Earth, not merely Earth accommodating life.
Gary Greenberg, scientist, artist, and inventor of 3-D microscopes, examines ordinary grains of sand and delivers for Headwind extraordinary images of a world we see every day but don’t really see.
Don Hata was imprisoned at three years old by the United States during the World War II roundup of American citizens of Japanese descent. We display some of Dr. Hata’s extraordinary paintings of the place where he was incarcerated from 1942 to 1944 (a full interview with Don Hata will be published in our next issue).
Collin Davis was wrongfully imprisoned at age 18 when he was arrested as an alleged aider and abettor of a murder and given a life sentence. He describes to Headwind his life of incarceration, and his eff orts to rebuild his life and contribute from the inside. Shortly before publication of his interview, Collin tragically tookbhis own life. Collin fought for nearly 20 years to try to get justice until he ran out of hope. Headwind is deeply shaken by his sudden death, and we mourn the loss of his young life. We supplement his interview with an interview of his mother, Melissa Hipple.
Terrance Steele, serving a life sentence for a crime committed by others, shares his life behind bars with Headwind and discusses some of the childhood influences that led to friendships and associations in his youth, which contributed to some missteps that he examines.
We are honored to present a painting by Artist Sandow Birk from his book Incarcerated: Visions of California in the 21st Century, in which Mr. Birk visited and created paintings of every prison in the state.
Robert Weide, a sociology professor and former gang member, discusses his book, Divide & Conquer: Race, Gangs, Identity, and Confl ict, in which he argues that gang confl ict and racial division undermine the potential for solidarity among the labor force and suppress resistance to low wages and corporate control.
Jeff Jones, co-founder of The Weather Underground and co-author of Prairie Fire, describes in depth his family’s generational commitment to pacifi sm and political activism. He takes us on his journey from Quaker upbringing, student body president in high school, conscientious objector, Antioch College, Students for a Democratic Society, The Weather Underground, associations with the Black Panther Party, living and building a family underground while being pursued by the FBI, and a fascinating anecdote of the Weather Underground’s assistance to Timothy Leary in his escape from prison to join up with Eldridge Cleaver in Algeria. Jones’ thoughtful analysis of the issues of the 1960s and 1970s provides context and an intellectual foundation for the struggles sixty years ago that ring all too familiar today.
There are few more iconic images of protest and revolt than the raised fists of John Carlos and Tommie Smith on the victory stand at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. Dr. Harry Edwards organized this immortal act of defi ance. He talks to Headwind about his early years growing up in segregated East St. Louis, his close relationships with Black athletes addressing racism in professional sports, as well as the countless athletes he has counseled, from a young, emerging heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali to Colin Kaepernick, taking a knee in protest, and Kaepernick’s subsequent blackballing and ostracism from football.
Michael Blaha takes us along on his 25th annual trip to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where he guides us through an intimate and colorful tour of the festival, the great city of Edinburgh, and the vibrant theater community in ancient Scotland.
Poet Suzanne Lummis delivers an essay, “The Poem Noir: Too Dark to be Depressed,” in which she discusses a distinct genre in modern poetry — the “poem noir.”
Headwind presents some of Los Angeles’s finest poets – ten poets who describe ordinary existence through extraordinary imagery, verse, and vision.
Prefacing Headwind’s “Painters on Painting” section, Debbie Green, a musician who performed with and instructed Joan Baez, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, and other legends, as well as being an artist, provides a painting to begin our series on painters.
Yvonne McGrath presents one of her beautiful paintings from her flower series.
Alexis Rhone Fancher has an upcoming book, A Picture is Worth a Poet’s Words, a photo-portrait book of over 100 Southern California poets, and contributes two photo-portraits of poets appearing in this issue.
Nearly forty years ago, I was the associate editor of Blue Window, a short-lived poetry magazine. We published Charles Bukowski, Wanda Coleman, Ron Koertge, Holly Prado, Cecilia Woloch, Jack Grapes, and many other major L.A. poets. Suzanne Lummis reviewed a book of poetry for our premier issue. I interviewed Allen Ginsberg and Robert Creeley for our first two issues. We harnessed the enthusiasm and energy of city-wide gatherings of poets into a community.
The magazine soon faded. But the spirit that gave birth to Blue Window never died. As Felix Pollak pointed out in his 1962 essay, “The World of Little Magazines,” small press magazines bear “a spirit of wide-openness and receptivity to new ideas, theories, movements, experiments; a stubborn refusal to conform to conventions and mores; an air of independence, a fervid antagonism against fetters and trammels and chains and strings of any kind.”
Why, after 40 years, am I starting another literary magazine? Jill Rosser, in her essay, “Reasons for Creating a New Literary Magazine,” provides a fitting answer: “It thrills you to think that a friend while traveling in Peru might accidentally leave your magazine on a windy day on a bench very close to a splashing fountain in a plaza, where some bilingual Peruvian will pick up your magazine to protect it from the windborne droplets, recognize the brilliance of one of the writers you have discovered, and begin the translation chain that will ultimately lead to that worthy author’s Nobel.”
Preserve culture and history. Order a print copy of Headwind. Visit our website at headwindmag.com or send a check for $19 ($12, plus $7 for mailing), to Headwind, 2530 Wilshire Blvd., 3rd Floor, Santa Monica, CA 90403.
Take it on your next trip to Peru, Hawaii, the beach, a park, the post office. Loan it to a friend (the one who never returns things), leave it on a park bench, and buy another one. Become part of our community. Let us hear from you by connecting with us at dan@headwindmag.com.
Daniel Ritkes, Editor and Publisher
