Dear Readers, January slammed us with winter storms, freezing rain, and bitter cold. As I am writing this, the snow has melted, the sun warms the air, and a pair of wrens call to each other in the redbud tree. The first green tips of the iris are poking through the soil, eager to grow, […]
Agnes Vojta
Agnes Vojta grew up in Germany and now lives in Rolla, Missouri where she teaches physics at Missouri S&T and hikes the Ozarks. Agnes is the author of Porous Land (Spartan Press, 2019), The Eden of Perhaps (Spartan Press, 2020), and A Coracle for Dreams (Spartan Press, 2022). Her poems have appeared in a variety of magazines; you can read some on her website agnesvojta.com.
Editor’s Note
Dear Readers, Fall is my favorite season. The heat and humidity of summer have given way to cooler, crisper nights. The light is milder, the last warm evenings are tinged in gold. The last fruits have ripened, a few late asters still bloom, the trees let go of their leaves. The milkweed seedpods have burst […]
Editor’s Note
Dear Readers, I am one of the associate editors and delighted to get to write the letter for this issue. Greetings from Missouri! Summer here is hot, humid, and green. So green. The woods are a jungle. Vines obscure the bluffs. The trails are swallowed by vegetation; all kinds of plants cover the forest floor. […]
At the Crossroads
Rest on the rocks, feel their reassuring solidity, take a deep breath to still the panic that rises like bile, recite the litany against fear and imagine Sisyphus happy.
Speechless
The mute years are dunes of unwritten words that shift with the winds, memories evanescent as mirages. I wish I had driven poems like stakes into the ground to anchor time.
Before a Winter
Precariously, the sycamores perch on the river bank. Tangled roots, unearthed, claw the gravel. Yellow leaves litter the ground like unanswered letters or debts too high to be forgiven.