Paperboats Zine

Edited by Laura Fyfe and Chris Powici

Snowdrops materialise, as they always do, with a keek of surprise that Spring is finally on the horizon. This year, perhaps more than ever before, they have brought with them a much-needed sense of hope. The editors of Issue Seven have weathered this dreich auld winter by reading through flurries of submissions on the theme of Eden.

Reflecting on Eden, it seemed fitting to ask a poet who hails from the verdant, sunny, lushness of Jamaica to contribute a poem. Poet, author, Professor of English at Penn State, and Cheney Creative Fellow at the University of Leeds, Shara McCallum sent us ‘Land that has neither beginning nor end’. Her spellbinding poem moves us to reflect on important questions. What do we regret having lost? What do we aspire to create?

Eden, as an ideal, is redolent with the vulnerabilities of childhood: innocence, beauty – and absence of conflict. It provides for us not only an origin but a destination we long to return to. If it ever truly existed in the first place.

In such worrying times, it can be tempting to find refuge in the nostalgic, the imaginary and the fantastical. Reading the submissions for this edition of Paperboats has, however, become a lesson on grounding ourselves in the real. We’ve learned how writers thole the challenges of modern life: with full-hearted appreciation of the best of our past and our present: with reflections on what we hope to preserve, to save, to nurture.

Read on. Consider what we might each do to bring a little more Eden to our own tiny corners of this changing planet. With the inevitability of snowdrops, the future arises, moment upon moment.