Welcome, one and all, to ballast 4.1.

As often happens with a new year, only more so, 2026 quite quickly shifted from potential hopefulness to more dire straits.

I need not recount the news headlines—you know for yourself. Often, however, such knowing feels all too isolated and isolating, accompanied with that creeping thought “I’m not the only one noticing this, right?” Such isolation is by design, I’m sure. The tidal waves of uncertainty, anger, and despair keep crashing, and we’re fortunate before we can come up for air or latch on to something sturdy before another beating comes.

I want to sound such alarms not to further mire us in the muck but rather to ring a bell so that you, too, can hear my chiming, just as I listen for yours.

It’s in that spirit that Sara and I sought to prioritize “voices” in this opening issue of 2026. It’s good, right, and encouraging to hear this contributors’ chorus, and I value them sharing their works, voices, and presences in this issue. At ballast, we obviously love our “dialogues.” We value the space that this feature provides writers to make connections, form bonds, and take a look into one another’s poetic practices and receptions. We promise “dialogues” will make a triumphant return. But there’s something especially foundational and nourishing right now to hear the words in this issue come out of their creators’ mouths. To reach across screen and through sound waves alike is a gift right now, and ballast wanted to honor that gift and pass it on. I’m thinking paradoxically of “ballast” as buoyancy, as a stabilizing force we carry with us. Maybe somehow it keeps us afloat without bogging us down. Or maybe we should feel the baggage after all. It’s hard to say at the moment. But it’s a dynamic I’ll keep tossing over amid this tempest. And I’ll look for you in the storm. Let’s help one another weather it together.

Not for nothing, I’ll end in a trickster demon’s voice. Here’s Mephistopheles preparing to depart with his companion in Goethe’s Faust, Part One (translated by Walter Kaufmann):

I rather travel through the air:
We spread this cloak—that’s all we need.
But on this somewhat daring flight,
Be sure to keep your luggage light.
A little fiery air, which I plan to prepare,
will raise us swiftly off the earth;
Without ballast we’ll go up fast—
Congratulations, friend, on your rebirth!

—Jacob, for ballast