Volume 7, Issue 2 (1994) Wyrd: A Midwestern Review

A Word From The Editors

A poem, story, drawing, or painting must be innovative and daring to be called art. For art demands that the unspoken word be said, that the un- tried method be tested, and that the untouched theme be explored. Perhaps equally important for art is an arena for unfettered expression.

We have attempted to design Wyrd to reflect these ideals of variety and innovation. A new size, new format, and new name all bear testimony to the concept of art as vision. Although it lends itself to a variety of pronunciations and meanings, the title has fomented queries, commendation, criticism, and even condemnation. In truth, our new name reaches back to the somewhat ambiguous Old English term for personified Fate or Fortune. The Anglo-Saxons themselves could not quite decide whether "Wyrd always goes as it must," or whether "Wyrd often preserves the unfated man when his valor avails." Wyrd is the force that sunders spirit from body in the doomed man.

The associations and connotations triggered by Wyrd in the modern mind are almost as ambiguous as the Anglo-Saxon concept itself. Yet in some ways Wyrd resembles artistic inspiration: the artist can no more resist the force of inspiration than the fated man can escape the dictates of Wyrd. Both go ever as they must.

To this end, we have included pieces that, in our view, display artistic quality in the widest possible variety of styles and genres.

We hope you find Wyrd: A Midwestern Review provocative and enlightening. It is with great pride and still greater relief that we offer it into your hands.