Dismay, discord and disaster all mark this issue’s prose selections. Gina Willner-Pardo’s “Consequences,” is a realistic portrait of a teen navigating life after her parents’ divorce; Jon Fotch’s “Closet,” immerses us into the total fear of impending, large-scale catastrophe; and Stephen Peters’ “Out of the Blue,” introduces us, with acute simplicity, to a calamity of a smaller sort.
Our poets this issue take us from the primal animalistic nature of “First Birth” to a series on death and holding on to our memories and perceptions (Beth Thompson’s 3 poems). Along the way we also journey some original and amusing paths with Marc Tretin’s poem about the life of a key ring and Will Walker’s about a poem unwilling to come out of its dressing trailer on set. We think you’ll be engaged with and sometimes amused by many of the excellent works here.
In addition, we were particularly excited by the poetry of Sally Albiso, her clear voice and original vision as well as how she played off the lines of other poets in her work. When we wrote to accept her poems, we were saddened to learn from her husband that she had passed away in October after a long bout with pancreatic cancer. We feel especially grateful her husband, John, is allowing us to publish her work.
In our What We’re Reading section our associate editor Adrienne Pilon explores the seemingly far away fiction and nonfiction books about Northern Ireland and the time of the “troubles.” She finds some ways these hard core books about difficult times show us about the way we look at even the most basic of things, including a sunset.
Happy reading, and Like us on Facebook,
Leonard Lang, Senior Editor and Adrienne Pilon, Associate Editor