Editor's Note

The Michyou Issue is evidence, perhaps that no one but me needed, that it's not only possible, but necessary, to create a satisfying artistic and intellectual life in some place else, other than the coasts or more desirous locales than Southeastern Michigan. The internet, of course, is some proof that you needn't live only where your house is, but there's no replacing, for me, physical bodies in physical space. The artists in this issue all live in Michigan, and all have connections to universities in the area, Eastern Michigan and the University of Michigan. Our relationships to these institutions are fluid and vary. Some are DJs at U of M's student and community radio station, WCBN-FM Ann Arbor, some work at the universities in various capacities, and others are or were students at them.

Having in mind recent questions/ concerns about the roles universities and academics play in contemporary poetics, I'll say that these institutions brought many of us to each other, and without them, it would have been much more difficult to be something together. In this issue, current and previous EMU students' poetry can be heard, along with current and previous faculty from EMU's Creative Writing program, about which I must say something briefly. Having taught Creative Writing in this program for almost 3 years, I found EMU to be a place where people flip the script on a regular basis, where the stakes in "the experimental" (for me, thinking, reading, and writing in newly critical ways), is palpably necessary, not taken for granted, and not particularly hip. I could say so much more about the significance of this, but it will have to wait.

Outside of EMU, many of the artists here are central to the lively noisiness that is local music in Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti, putting on puppet shows, playing in bands, and organizing events in coffee shops or their houses. I thought of writing something about each contributor, but the task was far too daunting. Having been the sort of teacher that writes comments longer than the poems of her students, I'd never finish writing this note.

I encourage you to start at the beginning and listen through to the end one day. textsound is meant to be a bit like a mix-tape or a radio show. The transitions, like the recordings, are something to hear, too.

Transitioning from Michigan to Madison,

I give you the Michyou Issue,