Introduction

In his essay “Cante Moro,” Nathaniel Mackey describes a kind of singing that has “a sound of trouble in the voice. The voice becomes troubled.” The quality he identifies here, via the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca, “is something beyond technical competence or even technical virtuosity. It is something troubling. It has to do with trouble, deep trouble. Deep song delves into troubled water, troubles the water.” Trouble, trouble, trouble. Mackey insists on repeating that note. He is careful to clarify that technique does matter, of course, but that one achieves the sound of deep song “by not being satisfied with skill. It is the other side, the far side of skill, not the near side.”

It is no great insight to say that we are living in troubling times. Perhaps—or probably—we always are. But right now, the feeling of crisis seems especially acute. You can see it in people’s eyes, hear it in their inflections, even when they don’t say it outright. For writers and other creators, the question of what art should do in a time of crisis looms large.

As I undertook the pleasurable task of reaching out to writers whose work I love for this issue, I realized I wanted voices that were both skillful and troubling. In order to make the extremely difficult choices from among all the incredible submissions I received, I ultimately allowed myself to be guided by my ear. I ended up with a clutch of work that, to my ear, sang with what Lorca calls “a scorched throat,” forms of eloquence that lean into trouble instead of away from it. Trouble not merely on the level of content, but also on the level of sound, rhythm, and tone, in often subtle or even subliminal ways that touch the nerves and prompt laughter or tears, a frisson of comfort, a flush of community feeling. We may be in trouble, but we are in it together. I’m certain that I hear it in the prose gathered here, and I hope you do too.