March 11, 2025

At Dulcet, we’re motivated by a desire to engage with art that resolves. Don’t mistake this for naivety. Of course, as in life, not all stories have a happy ending. But when thinking about what it means for a story to resolve, I was struck by this definition: “To be changed by breaking up.” An undeniable sort of breaking up occurs each time we encounter good art. If a story, poem, or piece of visual art can scatter our emotions, confront us with new information, reconfigure what we know to be true, and produce something new inside of us, then we are changed. We are resolved. 

For Issue 2, the Dulcet editorial team identified “Dusk & Dawn” as an iteration of what it means to resolve. Just as a period of murky, liminal dusk gives way to a new dawn, art leads us to confounding places within ourselves that give way to new clarity. We took this metaphor into the editorial process for Issue 2, and were surprised by what themes emerged. Many of Issue 2’s stories deal with loss and grief—a longing for times gone by, a glimpse of the chasm between dream and reality, a timid bravery before embarking into uncharted territory. “Dusk & Dawn” implies a slant towards hope, but hope is not always rosy and cheery. Just as resolve is neither positive nor negative, these stories revealed to us that hope is nuanced and complicated. From this foundational truth, Dulcet Issue 2, “Dusk & Dawn,” began to emerge. 

Adeeb Chowdhurry’s “Dead Mango Trees Go to Heaven” (page 70) marked a pivotal moment in how I began conceiving of “Dusk & Dawn.” What immediately stood out to me in this piece was the juxtaposition between the harrowing destruction of a beloved tree and the hope that this family will find a new, tender way to navigate the future. In Chowdhurry’s story, destruction and rebirth happen simultaneously, informing one another and adding depth to the human experience. My initial note on the story reflects this:

The big takeaway for me is that the narrator is reckoning with the passage of time and the way things change; to me, the cutting down of the mango tree represents the way that we all must tread on into the future, and I think the ending suggests that the speaker and her grandmother are finding ways to connect to each other despite Nanu being a shell of her former self. That there can still be beauty in wreckage. 

The metaphor of the mango tree cracked open an entirely new lens that I used throughout the rest of the editorial process—a story doesn’t have to tie itself up with a neat bow in order to resolve. 

Dulcet Associate Editor Alison Keiser, points to Sheila E. Murphy’s poem, “From Jazz Fingerings 26/,” (page 5) as a key piece in determining her approach to selecting for “Dusk & Dawn.” About why the poem immediately stood out to her, Alison shared, “I love how the long lines but compact sentences push and pull like jazz music does. Murphy's images are memorable and so full of life.” Similarly, Alison’s first comment about the piece read:

I think "From Jazz Fingerings 26/" could represent this issue's theme in a complex but compelling way…I think it represents a change, a shift, that reminds me of ‘Dusk to Dawn,’ especially with the line, ‘The purpose of an evening edging into night.’

Similarly, Dulcet editor Anna Brunner remarked that David Serafino’s “Firebreak” (page 10) exhibits a controlled narrative, commenting, “I was drawn to Firebreak from the very first paragraph, which effectively laid out the story's groundwork within just a few sentences.” On a technical level, the work selected for “Dusk & Dawn” reveals that form can speak to a theme just as strongly as the ideas themselves. Whether through lyrical descriptions or tight narrative pacing, we quickly realized that Dulcet’s work should bring thematic concepts into the concrete realm.

When speaking with Dulcet editor Tervela Georgieva about the work in Issue 2, exploration came up as a theme that framed her editorial experience. Tervela highlighted Frederick Livingston’s poem, “Choose This Winter Morning,” (page 37) as an exploratory poem—one that rhythmically moves the reader through landscape and experience:

[The poem] tracks a feeling all the way through, creating a kind of  anatomy of a feeling. These are the types of explorations I want to publish. I want to encounter artwork that delves into the nuance of the human experience, both the difficult and wondrous parts.

This idea highlights something essential about the nature of our “Dusk & Dawn” thematic focus: when darkness is traversed, there is something hopeful about the innate exploration of it. 

The creative works in this volume show us that being willing to feel all the way through a personal or collective darkness means that we are never stagnant. When we tell our stories, however bleak and unsure they may be, we are affirming that we are here, alive and awake. Telling our stories means we refuse to stay stuck; whether in a dusk or a dawn, the act of telling the truth is a radical, hopeful resolve. In the “Dusk & Dawn” metaphor, one cannot exist without the other—that is, light and dark are essential elements in the equation that is a full life. This is the undeniable throughline in our editorial process—to be exploratory, hopeful, afraid, lost, and unsure is to be human. In our conversation, Tervela expressed this idea beautifully:

What solidified my conviction that “Choose This Winter Morning” needed to be published in Dulcet was the ending: ‘just as spring does / commit your mortal / chlorophyll or / love nothing at all.’ The poem ends with a sense of clarity, a kind of resolve. This is not to say it ends with an answer. It is to say it ends with an honest attempt to understand the human condition and to center the hope we need to stay alive. I would tell artists who want to submit to Dulcet to let their work be complex, tangled up. Then untangle it; show us the star at the center. Show us what continues to shine in our world.