Welcome to SGP MINIS: The Life of a ShowGoose — we’re so glad you’re here! SGP MINIS are some of our favorite projects of the year; the compactness of the task, the quick turnaround times, the excitement and energy from our contributors and editors — the rush of it makes us fall in love, hard and fast, with Silly Goose Press over and over again, and The Life of a ShowGoose has been all the same in the best ways. Narrowing down a tall stack of dazzling poems into just this tiny little 13-piece collection was, of course, nearly impossible, but the joy I (Lexi, hi!) felt seeing so many people come together to write under one common umbrella category, Taylor Swift and all that she entails, really did hit different.

Honklo, dear goose! Thanks for taking a gander at Silly Goose Press — we’re happy you’ve flown our way. This is our second (or third, depending on which issue you read first today!) SGP MINI Issue, and if we flapped our wings in celebration any harder, we’d just take off. The Flock has worked so diligently these last few, short (jam-packed!) weeks in order to get these issues out and looking perfect, and I (Lexi, hi!) am so proud of our team!

The Life of a ShowGoose has run a bit differently than what’s usual for The Flock. As our first poetry-only issue, I really did a lot of the administrative tasks (the emailing, the proofing, the website-setting, the handling of the Submittable back-end) on my own. Except … of course I didn’t! Not really anyway. I had the Flock behind me every step of the way: Parker and Eric to help me with all of my techy problems, Rhiannon with vibe checks and PDF support, Julia, Annelise, and Ian with comms backup, and everyone’s cheerleading the whole honkin’ way. Even though this was really a Mini Issue that I piloted and, let’s face it, insisted upon creating, and even though I swore I could do it all by myself, every single thing we do here at Silly Goose Press is better when we do it together.

I’ve been thinking more critically lately about why I am so invested in Taylor Swift (the brand, the woman, the lyricism, you name it!), and I think actually it all comes back to this same idea: we are better together. We are better individuals when we’re surrounded by a community with similar goals, interests, and desires. We are a better people when we’re experiencing our emotions (happiness, peace, love, grief) together, holding hands and covered in glitter and letting it all out into the open air. Taylor gives people the chance to be together. And this issue, The Life of a ShowGoose, encapsulates the human experience and wraps it up with a glitzy honk.

I hope you enjoy reading these poems as much as I have, and that you feel inspired to create and find community, and then create some more. Anybody got any extra friendship bracelet supplies??

HONKS + KISSES!

Lexi

And Parker Dean and Eric and Rhiannon and Julia and Ian and Annelise