Greetings readers,
I supposed that if this project was going to live on for a while, it should be catalogued with an ISSN. Now you can find it in the Library of Congress! It’s ISSN 2638-3594.
Category: Uncategorized Page 1 of 3
And with experience comes perspective. Writing a new post for every new issue has begun to feel token and redundant – if you’re here, you know what you’re here for. Starting next month, the blog section will quiet down, updating only with major news or relevant, substantial thoughts concerning the journal.
However, for old times’ sake:
Kristin Garth returns to the Featured Poet throne with her poem The Lady Who Loved Lightning. Kristin was on a literary bent with this submission, and I hope you enjoy the various references employed. I hope you enjoy her and the rest of the talented poets in this issue.
Congratulations to this month’s featured poet, Suzanne Osborne! It’s been a fun year(!!) of reading everyone’s work. Every poet’s bio has been a treasure trove of great new places to read poetry. This month I was happy to discover Leveler, a site with a beautiful clean design and great concept. Ever wonder exactly why the editors chose your work (or someone else’s)? Head over there and maybe ping their submissions inbox. I’d like to note that from here out I will require biographical statements to strictly adhere to a 50-word limit, so please make note of that in the submissions guidelines.
Happy to announce Richard Layne’s first published poem ever, and his status as featured poet for April 2018! Annie Blake also has five absolutely stellar poems in this issue, and I really cannot overstate her sense of natural speech rhythm and talent for weaving together tangential images into a meaningful whole. I chose Richard’s poem as this month’s feature to make his first success as splashy as possible, and hopefully help promote his work as he continues to submit elsewhere.
This being a monthly publication, sometimes there are few people in a given month who submit work that pushes that little red
“publish this”
button. I believe in filling these pages with only such work, not filling a quota, and I hope you’re okay with reading a little less of great work some months than reading work that fits a little less into the idea of this place.
This month, please enjoy David B. Prather, March’s Featured Poet! You can see his poem “Barometer” at top billing in the new issue or on the home page. The sum total of the authors’ writing experience in this issue is simply incredible and I encourage anyone who enjoys these poems to seek out the authors’ other work, linked in their biographical statements. Thanks to all who submitted for this month’s issue.
Happy to congratulate James Croal Jackson, who was published in the very first issue, on being this month’s Featured Poet! Head over to the issues page to see a list of everyone included this month, or skip to the issue and get to reading!
When I started this project, the goal was ultimately to find more poetry to read. While having people mail poetry directly to me does accomplish that goal, in the process of finding contributors’ other work (to link in their biographical statements) I’ve also stumbled across a number of wonderful journals. This month I spent a good couple of hours enjoying haiku courtesy of Acorn. I expect my bookshelf to swell at a yet greater pace as these months and issues go by.
As always, it’s been a fun month reviewing poetry and interacting with authors. I’d like to congratulate Holly Day on claiming the Featured Poet spot for January with her poem Adapting to the Change. Hope you enjoy the other great poems by her and the other six poets in this issue!
Happy new year and happy holidays! Now’s a good time for spending time with the people you love, and hopefully, the poetry you love, too. This month I looked for sonnets and found five. This month’s featured poet, Kristin Garth, led the charge with several submissions. Special thanks to her and Devon Balwit for stepping up.
As befitting the season, this month’s issue is a little lean. May Megan Mealor’s diction keep you warm (it did for me – she’s Featured for a reason!). Congratulations to this year’s Pushcart nominees – Jon Riccio, Jon Croal Jackson, Honor Vincent, and Megan Mealor.
As a poet, writer, or even just someone who’s seen a cringe-inducing typo, you know the difference a misplaced quotation mark can make. However, the issues with the page were related not to where I placed the quotes, but what kind. See the following? ( “ ” ) Really zoom in, it’s actually a begin quote and an end quote symbol instead of two identical ones. When I coded the page, I did so on a notepad app on my computer, but the browser doesn’t recognize the begin quote symbol and I didn’t see the difference when I copied it in. So, a link would go from working like this to not working, like this. Many thanks to Erik Fuhrer, poet of Issue #5, who pointed out the link failures.