In December of 2002, a letter to the editor appeared in our local paper, the North County Times, which made the following claim: "Most of us realize that writing poetry is the refuge of the unstable and the preoccupation of many unteachable American students." Over the course of the next several weeks, letter after letter appeared to contradict the original author's sentiment. Some of these letters, it should be noted, bore names that appear in the pages that follow. So swift and sudden were the "pro-poetry" responses that the North County Times addressed the situation in an editorial that read, in part, "With Tax Day approaching, war brewing in the Persian Gulf, nuclear sabers rattling in North Korea and California facing a $34.8 billion debt, readers of this newspaper are up in arms about…poetry." The editor went on to point out that such an outpouring is "a sign of cultural health."

     As faculty co-advisors for Bravura for the fourth year in a row, we couldn't agree more that poetry—and the creative voice in general—is worth defending. It is worth defending because it is through this voice that we all come to explore, express, and understand what makes us human. With this belief in mind, we value this annual literary journal precisely because it provides a forum for our students at Palomar to creatively voice their observations, concerns, values, and dreams.  Bravura has existed since the 1960s, and it has been steadily evolving over the last few years—an evolution evidenced not only by the increasing number and variety of submissions we receive, but also by the burgeoning enrollment in English 137, the class that is responsible for putting the journal together each spring. Moreover, we have seen greater numbers of students finding their way into the English Department's creative writing classes. Students come to these classes with stories to tell and poems to express, and while there, they learn how to add shape and power to their visions. This process is aided mightily by the considered and sensitive study of creative works—a study that takes place primarily, but by no means exclusively, in our literature classes. All of these venues and the people involved with them work together to help ensure the "cultural health" of Palomar in particular and our community in general.

     But despite the outpouring of letters in the North County Times, the literary and artistic corners of our culture are constantly under attack, usually in the form of budget constraints. As elementary and high school districts tighten their belts, art and music programs are traditionally the first pounds shed—assuming that they haven't been lost in some earlier round of cuts. Likewise, colleges may be tempted to look at theater, music, art, and literature programs as expendable; after all, do these programs really account for themselves in an economic world?

     In fact, they don't.

     Yet they are indispensable. To sacrifice these programs that give expression to the human spirit and celebrate the imagination is to grievously wrong our students. If our schools do not champion the arts despite budget shortfalls, our students will be given a tragic lesson in values and priorities; in short, our students will not venture forth into the world of the arts but step ponderously into the room of economic viability. And then, to quote Calvin Gross, "the dollars [they] gain in the absence of enlightenment like this will be earned in drudgery and spent in ignorance."

     The volume you hold in your hands contains the voices and visions of Palomar students who have taken the risk to explore the world around them. On their behalf, we would like to welcome you along on that journey.

Dr. Carlton Smith
Dr. Rocco Versaci
Faculty Co-advisors, Bravura