Magazine Stand :: Blue Collar Review – Fall 2023

Blue Collar Review editor’s note opens the Fall 2023 publication: “This issue emerges in maddening times. As I write this, the Israeli slaughter of Palestinians, triggered by a brutal uprising of oppressed desperation, continues in Gaza as well as in the occupied West Bank with avid support and weapons supplied by our country’s leaders. [. . . ]

“Some poems in this issue struggle with whether our protests and resistance even matter in the face of overwhelming odds and the stubbornly deaf power of the corrupt monstrosity of our seemingly insane ruling class. They affirm, based in our own working class history, as well as continuing labor victories, that it absolutely does matter; that we lose when we give in to hopelessness, cynicism or the cultivated division that isolates and disempowers us. Given the impending climate catastrophe, the danger of growing wars and of nuclear war that threatens our existence, we, like Palestinians, have no choice but to struggle for our own survival against the same entrenched, corporate militarized power. [. . . ]

“We remain grateful for your support, for the strong words and poetry sent and to be able to continue publishing in spite of rising prices and postal rates. As a poem by Cathy Porter notes, ‘Poetry can’t solve a damn thing / but readers can / And we must.'”