As a reminder first cited in the previous issue, please note that simultaneous submissions for poetry are no longer accepted since responses to poets with acceptances are completed before the end of the month after closure of the submission window. [Though I try to respond to poets without acceptances, it is safe to assume that if you haven’t heard from us before July 1 or October 1, your poems would’ve been released back into your custody and any inquiry shouldn’t be necessary.]
I thank those submitters who make my life easier in processing hundreds of submissions by following the guidelines [especially the part where it stresses that everything is to be in one Word document], sadly, there are too many who don’t; I have been very forgiving but this might have to change
The work in this issue, as you will find, is delightful speculative poetry with literary quality and depth [this automatically disqualifies AI-generated work, which we do not support]. I usually sequence the poems to conform to an arc of some kind but not so much this time there are resonances among some of the poems, which at east might ink them in a broad way. There’s a good mixture of science fiction and fantasy, as well as a variety of others: dark reality and eco-poetry. Here’s the poets around the country [and often from around the world]; please enjoy their work:
When It All Began by Garrett Carroll [Fargo, North Dakota]
Once There Was a Lonely Unicorn by Alicia Hilton [Wilmette, Illinois]
Löwenmensch by Deborah L. Davitt [Houston, Texas]
The Giants of Kandahar by Anna Cates [Wilmington, Ohio] by Marie Vibbert [Cleveland, Ohio]
Force against force by Richard Magahiz[Alameda, California]
A Martian Memoir by Frank Coffman [Elgin, Illinois]
Orbital Hulks by Ann K. Schwader [Westminster, Colorado]]
There’s Nothing and No One To Stop Me by Emmie Christie [Omaha, Nebraska]
Sonnet d’antan by Bruce Robinson [Brooklyn, New York]
