Issue Twenty-Five: Summer 2022

There is water at the center of the summer issue: the "full body thirst" in Federman's prose, the drowning music of the Shenandoah in Follett's poem, the push and pull of life's tides in Cristiani's series, the "oceans of glass / creatures" that Wingard's speaker finds at the sea’s edge. And perhaps, this movement through water allows some purification, some cleansing, some movement toward hope after the loss expressed in many of the issue's early pieces: the loss of betrayal, of a child, of innocence. As, for instance, we see the narrator of Krajniak's "Porch Light" respond to loss by discovering beauty and light in its depth. This issue includes work from Stephen Barile, Andrew Hudson Barter, Kathleen Calby, AG Compaine, Katharine Cristiani, Rachel Federman, Rich Follett, Howie Good, Goddfrey Hammit, Ute Kelly, Matthew Krajniak, George Looney, Rachel Mallalieu, Jessica Lee McMillan, Patricia Merlino, Al Ortolani, Karl Plank, Betty Stanton, Stefan Sullivan, Noel Wingard, and Anastasia Vassos.