There is no denying it. We love poems that makes us cry, and there are several in this issue. Poems that lean so fearlessly into grief that they knock us over. “Don’t go—,” writes Anya Kirshbaum, “I’d cry, my little persimmon,/ my little drop of honey, when her breath/ ceased.” And then Spencer Jewell: “I was his/ deathbed daughter and nothing more/ the arpeggio/ of endless rain that repelled him.”
We also love poems that make us smile or laugh out loud. Julia C. Alter uses a refreshing humor to enter fraught subject matter: “The Rock wears wooden canoes/ as shoes. It’s a nice, snug fit./ The shoe salesman/ at the canoe store asks/ if he’s sure he can wiggle/ his toes, and presses/ his thumb on the bow.” A quieter joy can be found in Stephanie Kartolopoulos’ ode to Edna St. Vincent Millay: “Gladness for the way a spine can unravel/ after a hard day and release the heartbreak that wove its way// through my vertebrae.”
How privileged we feel to present Issue 45 with its wild range of experiences and perspectives.
One more piece of good news: Submissions for the 2026 Coniston Prize are now open! We are proud that esteemed poet Carolyn Forché is this year’s judge, and if you love her work as much as we do, we hope you will consider sending poems.
—Rachel Marie Patterson and Dara-Lyn Shrager, Editors