From Rage to Healing

Art matters because it makes us feel — and the latest issue of Wildscape Literary Journal demonstrates this with passion and reverence.

The publication features Decapitulation by Robyn Daly, a powerful photographic work that responds to the tragic death of Lamon Wiggins. In 2024, Wiggins was among a group of graduating students celebrating on the campus of an inner-city school in the United States when a car drove onto the grounds and gunfire erupted. Wiggins was fatally shot while attempting to push a friend out of harm’s way.

The latest issue of Wildscape Literary Journal brings together artists and writers from across the globe to confront the senseless violence that increasingly shapes contemporary life. Through poetry, visual art and prose, contributors seek to process collective grief — to digest, protest, rail, rant, purge and ultimately heal.

Photographer and South African immigrant Robyn Daly said she felt compelled to contribute to the issue because of her own lived experience of violence.

“As an immigrant from South Africa, where gun and knife crime form part of daily life in some communities, I felt compelled to add my voice,” Robyn said.

The title Decapitulation deliberately combines the ideas of “decapitation” and “capitulation”, evoking both the loss of reason and the act of surrender. The word itself is intentionally fractured and nonsensical — reflecting the irrationality and devastation of violence.

She also expressed her deepest sympathies to Wiggins’s grieving mother and praised the editorial team behind Wildscape Literary Journal for their commitment to creating meaningful dialogue through art and literature.

In the words of editor Ophelia Monet:

“Our goal is to blend whimsy with chaos, ethereal with truth, gentle with wild. We want to make you feel.”

Issue 6 dedicated to Lamon Wiggins can be read online here