from the editor:

When I co-edited The Future of Black: Afrofuturism, Black Comics, and Superhero poetry, I knew that the stories and myths shaped into poems did not end with that collection. To look at the world and ask the hows and whys about the universe is science; but to take it a step further and imagine what if is poetry. The Black poetic is multi-hyphenate and uses storytelling to pass down knowledge from generation to generation. This information used to be proof that we survived but has since evolved. It now shows the ways a community celebrates joy, moments of self-reflection, how family connects or disconnects with one another, and more importantly the radical imagination of an inclusive Black future. These dreams of the future can take place 10 years from now or even 100. Following the spirit of Sun Ra and Octavia Butler, and the poetic lineage of Nikki Giovanni, Afrofuturism can manifest in various ways and without limits. The word Polaris, also known as the North Star, is the brightest star in the constellation Ursa Minor. Harriet Tubman used the North Star as a guide, and it’s the star that still watches over us. In the new Polaris Poetry Series, we want to see how Black futurity manifests in your poetic world.

The inaugural book in the Polaris Poetry Series is Sweetwater Mass by Shakeema Smalls, forthcoming January 2027.