BEMA

Letter from the Editor

Dearest Bema reader,

Since Volume 1, Bema has been print-only, with our reach extending only as far as paper could take us. Before this year, Bema was always predictable: one would see the posters go up in the late Fall, hear the whispers about who is submitting their masterpiece, feel the excitement of all the poems rushing in after Poetry Week, taste the wind as they ran across campus to our voting meetings, and finally feel the weight of their work in their hands in late May. But now, with this global shift onto the interwebs, we thought Bema should follow suit.

Bema, in its new and improved form, is everywhere you are. By launching our first ever Bema website, Bema is now in your in your pocket, in your backpack, in your heart, and your mind all at the same time. Now that we have the internet, we can go further than ever before. No longer is our audience confined to those who received our magazine on those few humid hot dwindling days of sweet summer.

As a staff we decided on four words to guide how we would organize the website. Latibule, Mendacious, Zephyr, and Viridity gave us the foundation from which to build the website. Each tab is carefully curated with the works’ intent and message in mind, and we did this to make the website flow as organically as possible given the medium.

In the time of social distancing, Bema members came together to make this website despite everything going on in our lives. We made a final project that was important for the student body to see, showing we all can adjust to this new (temporary) way of life and still make creations that are just as special as before. I have always seen Bema as a documentation of the students’ artistic talent; this year it has documented not only Parker talent but also Parker resilience.

Thank you to my staff for working diligently on the Bema website. Thank you to the students for opening up to us and sharing their intimate thoughts, fears, and memories with a larger audience. Thank you to the student body for listening to my "Submit to Bema" jacket (it feels nice to be seen). And thank YOU. Thank you for spreading Bema's once paper-clipped wings to all the places it has never reached before.