Editor’s note
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about distance. When my father gets off work at seven in the evening in South Carolina, across the ocean his brother is asleep because it’s midnight in Portugal. At the same time, the sun is still high over my cousin in San Francisco. Between these three points on the map, other members of my family inhabit various time zones, speak different languages, and live unique daily lives—still, we are all connected, because we are family.
Distance and language are two core thematic elements of Pollux Journal. Here, in Issue 2, our goal is to draw each reader in regardless of where you are geographically or what your relationship with language is. This collection of writing and art is as beautiful as it is far-reaching in its exploration of multilinguality, diaspora, travel, and more.
Language stretches out its hands to draw time together, such as in FJ Doucet’s “my heart in the river”, in which the author interrogates the parallels of the past and present of life and language through the echoing halls of a Toronto museum. Sometimes, language is received through the perspective of an outsider, like J.V. Sumpter’s “The Bus Having Dropped Us in the Irish Part of Ireland, I Poke Around a Restaurant Full of Locals and Head Upstairs Alone”. Language exists in colonization, fragmented within diaspora—as Salonee Verma discusses in “bijli gayi”, as well as the complex narrative of family weaved into Jood AlThukair’s “you ask me to play fairouz on the ride back home” and Amy Bobeda’s “Naranja”. Although we are a magazine dedicated to the exploration of the nuances of multilinguality, we have merely scratched the surface of language in all its complexity. Yet, in this second issue and in the issues to come, we are excited and proud to share a small but significant part of multilinguality throughout the world—to cultivate a literary home for the narratives of our amazing contributors.
To everyone who has read, contributed to, shared, and supported Pollux during the journey our first two issues: thank you. Like the stars themselves, you illuminate our literary world and help bring this journal to life. We are so grateful for each and every one of you.
Sincerely,
Adelina Rose Gowans / Editor