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I believe that when we write, we try to capture the infinite colors and nuances and shades (and shades of meaning) of life with black letters on a white page. By definition, then, writing appears to be a futile endeavor: the attempt to capture life's shades of gray (or pink or purple or chartreuse) with black and white fillm. I find it strange, and even a little saddening, that we can only write in black and white. We depend upon the contrast of black letters on a white page to bring meaninig to our ideas.
Poeple may say that some of the ideas and creations in our magazine are questionable (in merit or in content), but I remind them that life is questionable and that it is the indeterminate questions that drive us to write. It is the volatility, the unpredictability, of life which renders it so beautiful. Because of its lack of definition, life invites us to try and capture it and define it and hold it for a few fleeting seconds before it changes again. There is something in us that recognizes life is inconstistencies, its kaleidoscopic patterns, and it is something which screams at us to write about what we see, futile as the attempt may be. Writing is the translation of our thought, through channeling arm and past somber elbow, to the promise of the page, completely bypassing our conscious. Writing gives us the chance to define the world on our own terms, in our own words (black and white as they may seem). However, I fear that we cannot hope to capture all aspects of life in their momentary fury of color or their passion of meaning. Something is lost in the translation from pure feeling to verbalized theme. We are limited by the black and white contrasts of our words on a page. Everything we describe must be broken down into letters and words and contrasting colors, regardless of the fluidity of the feeling or the continuum of the experience. These balck and white words are all we have, though, and some writers know how to use them to their most colorful extent. We write in black and white. We even think in black and white sometimes, but I am proud that this is the first issue of Collage to be enclosed in a cover which has not been limited by those two unarguable colors. This is our attempt to capture colors. Hannah Rohde |
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