Dear Readers,

When we launched Waterwheel Review, we were keen to explain why we were so moved and motivated by the image of the waterwheel. Water stands for language, an ever flowing, renewable source; the waterwheel, an engine of labor, circles through, lifting words and then dropping them back into the running stream. Our magazine is a mill, we said, where the waterwheel powers writing and publishing. “We want—and need—to make things.”

For a couple of years, now, we have known that we can’t make enough of our own things while we give so much energy to the work of others. We have had to cut substantially the time and attention devoted to our own writing, and mostly we have been glad to do it, determined to find a way to repay our own work in the end. We never did find that way.

If we could quit our jobs and earn that income publishing this magazine, we would take that deal in an instant. But that’s not the world we live in. For many, many months we have known this, but we couldn’t accept it until now. And thank goodness for that.

Every single issue of this magazine has been a wonder that transported and enchanted us. We can’t say we gloried in every moment. We read or edited or built the site at times while sick, exhausted, grieving—that’s the nature of any publication. But we damn well gloried in every word, every paired image and sound.

Four years and thirty-six issues: What an honor to publish our contributors. What a privilege to offer stunning work to our readers. We must use the word pleasure, too, always rolled out to accompany “honor and privilege,” but pleasure isn’t strong enough, nor is gratitude nor joy nor blessing. For once we find ourselves at a loss for words to express precisely what it has meant to keep this waterwheel turning.

Maybe this will do it: How many times does anyone ever fully achieve the glittering, half-glimpsed vision floating above; that winking, flirting piece of art we ache to manifest? For the three of us, precisely this once.

We will keep making things and so will you. We started this magazine with the image of the waterwheel and a Jean Rhys quote, and we will end in the same way, as we thank you for reading and submitting, and wish you and yours all the very best:

Listen to me. All of writing is a huge lake. There are great rivers that feed the lake, like Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. And there are mere trickles, like Jean Rhys. All that matters is feeding the lake. I don’t matter. The lake matters. You must keep feeding the lake.

—Claire, Suzanne, Cheryl

September 1, 2024: Waterwheel Review will stay online for the foreseeable future. It remains as it looked for the final June 2024 issue.

Joy Gaines-Friedler

We Will Not March Back

by Joy Gaines-Friedler

March 2022

for Linda

after Amanda Gorman

I am the one who once thought that we
would track the sky together, the will
of long-necked herons seeking open water, not

this forced alone-ness—this march
through gunshot trying to find a way back.

Consider a staircase of missing risers, it’s easier to
descend. Hidden holes hide the risk of slipping into what
could plunge us into denuded space. At five I was

terrified by those dark gaps, but
still, I braved the basement to move
toward what could be discovered there, to
see my grandfather in the eyes of what

he painted, beautiful faces, all the shall
and shalt not formalities he knew to be
truth, simply by being a-

live, unlabeled, unafraid of country.

At fifteen we believed in the tilt-a-whirl, that
spinning was a metaphor for what is
and would be our future, sure to leave us bruised
but willing. Bruised but
whole

We hungered for the benevolent,
hung Joplin and Dylan on our walls but
got guns instead. Women rose bold
with power, our bodies fierce—

but if not for that gun… your husband’s gun and
no restrictions… we’d whirl, we’d spin… free.

Joy Gaines-Friedler is the author of three books of poetry. Her most recent, Capture Theory (Kelsay Books, 2018), is both a Forward Review Indiefab and Edward Hoffer Award finalist. Her work has appeared in The New York Quarterly, San Pedro River Review, Rattle, and elsewhere. Her chapbook Stone on a Stone was the 2021 winner of The Friends of Poetry, Celery City Chapbook contest.