Emblazoned with Love: Reflecting on the EMBLAZON Issue
By Leticia Priebe Rocha
I stumbled upon Yellow Arrow Journal as a writer submitting my work. I officially joined the Yellow Arrow family when my poem “Lost In” was selected for the PEREGRINE (Vol. VII, No. 2) issue. A few months later, I was featured on the March 2023 edition of the .Writers.on.Writing. series. Then, in the early warmth of June where everyone starts coming alive, I was asked to be guest editor for Yellow Arrow Journal’s fall 2023 issue. I was equal parts thrilled and confused. I knew nothing about editing a journal. I had only ever been on the writer’s side of things—a constant stream of rejections interrupted briefly by acceptances at merciful intervals. Despite my initial doubts, excitement won out as I pondered the possibilities of a theme that would do the incredible mission of Yellow Arrow justice.
This opportunity came at a point in my life where I often found myself meditating on the self, all the versions of myself and what I had lived that created them. I could easily identify big catalysts, like my family’s migration from Brazil. What truly interested me, though, was digging deeper into those catalysts and beyond to find the parts of a whole, all the fleeting moments that make up a life. Being overcome with wonder at the waterfalls near Santo Antonio do Pinhal. Witnessing my baby sister sit up and sway to the theme music of a novela on the TV for the first time. Hugging a dear friend when he gifted me a graduation stole with the Brazilian flag on it. Watching a lover make us mouthwateringly perfect banana walnut pancakes to the tunes of Grant Green. A myriad of ephemeral instants colored with people, places, images, and sensations that are irrevocably inscribed into my being—this is how EMBLAZON emerged.
It was a daunting task to capture the entire spectrum of the human experience in a single journal issue. As I began working alongside the amazing Yellow Arrow team to mold EMBLAZON into all its glory, my fledgling fears dissipated entirely. It was profoundly heartening to see the level of care that was invested at each step of the process by every member of the team. I knew that as long as I treated every submission with that same level of care, EMBLAZON would take the shape it was meant to. One of the most important lessons I learned during this process was that when an editor tells you they had to make very difficult and incredibly subjective decisions, they are not simply trying to spare writerly feelings—it’s the truth!
In the issue’s introduction, I describe every piece in EMBLAZON as a testament to writing as an act of love. I struggle to find the words to articulate what an honor it has been to be let into such vulnerable and quintessentially human expressions of love and aliveness. EMBLAZON opens with Alli Tervo’s gorgeous “The Field,” its last line “Love is to stand in the sun where the risk is” echoing throughout the issue as it takes us through a journey of the most precious aspects of living. There are vividly tender celebrations of the people and places that raised us, like in Sarah Josephine Pennington’s “Myths and Lore”: “The feel of that hateful winter with its insistence on freezing, the snow piling in drifts against the river rock my daddy had pulled from the lake and mason’d onto the house, stays engraved into my bones, a permanent mark saying this is who and where yer from.”
The poet in me simply could not shy away from depictions of the transformative power of romantic love, like in Emma Conlon’s “GENESIS: revision”: “two fallen angels laughing as we slipped / from the precipice, a silver moon of sky / on the eve of our damnation / I’ve never felt closer to heaven.” EMBLAZON is also a monument to resilience and the journey toward one’s most radiant self, exemplified perfectly in Elizabeth Birch’s “Bloom”: “It may take [a cactus] forty years to bloom a flower. / I’m in my mid-thirties now. The New England sky is gray, / but I’m pointed toward the sun, waiting.”
The issue closes with K.S. Palakovic’s stunning “If I had two hours to live,” the piece’s last line encapsulating what we all strive to make of the brief time we have in this life: “and it would be enough.” I am ardently proud of EMBLAZON, our contributors, and the Yellow Arrow team. Above all, I am deeply grateful for the gift of leading the curation of such a glowing tribute to the transient nature of our time on this earth. If you haven’t snagged your copy of EMBLAZON, I sincerely hope you do. It is so incredibly special to encounter a collection of work that not only moves and inspires but radiates love. May this love be emblazoned (I couldn’t resist . . .) in your life and memory.
Paperback and PDF versions are available from the Yellow Arrow bookstore. Discounts are also available (here) if you would like to purchase copies for friends and family (minimum purchase of five). You can also search for Yellow Arrow Journal on any e-book device or anywhere you purchase books, including Amazon and most other distribution channels.
I will see you all alongside many of our phenomenal contributors on November 29 at 8:00 p.m. EST for the official EMBLAZON reading! Find out more information at yellowarrowpublishing.com/calendar/emblazon-live-reading. Let us know you will join us at fb.me/e/14zRYBxCi.
Leticia Priebe Rocha earned her bachelor’s from Tufts University, where she was awarded the 2020 Academy of American Poets University & College Poetry Prize. Born in São Paulo, Brazil, she immigrated to Miami, Florida, at the age of nine and currently resides in the Greater Boston area. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Salamander, Rattle, Pigeon Pages, Protean Magazine, and elsewhere.
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