Issue 2: Hunger ‧  May 2024

Everyone in the world has at some point felt an insatiable desire for something or someone. Hunger is a heightened state of longing, which always carries with it a sense of hopelessness, of the impossibility of fulfillment. The object of our longing can take many different forms. Perhaps we crave true love, or maybe just a cigarette on which we can puff while we gaze at the hills, valleys, or plains of our homeland. Perhaps from time to time, we are even hungry for death. Hunger are complex, as it can be physical, mental, or even spiritual.

With a touch of exaggeration, one might venture to the claim that hunger is a typical state for modern humans. Consumer society inundates us with an overabundance of goods, an infinite number of options, and the individual may well find his/herself in a state of constant longing. And even as we fulfill some of our hunger, we may still be burdened by a sense of dissatisfaction, for we always know that even as we fulfill one desire, we are missing out on some opportunity, some excitement elsewhere.

In this collection, our hope is that this will portray or at least capture what it was like to be in a state of HUNGER—may it be figuratively or literally. Most of all, it is intended for readers who have a fear of missing out, as this is often after the object of our hunger when it has been consumed, we are left with only a clanging feeling of emptiness. We hope this hunger will remind them how complex our hunger can be in the form of writing.   ✦

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FRANCES HA

Poetry Editor