Issue 18 [Winter 2026] – LETTERS JOURNAL

WINTER 2026

LETTERS: from the Editors

Dear Reader:

In “The Call,” Angela Sorby writes that “love is not a give and take / but a clearing.” Clearing as in making gracious space within the normal, close-pressed order of things. Clearing as in removing what is unwanted or unnecessary. Clearing as in passing over or under an unyielding or difficult obstacle. A “clearing of the register.”

If it is true, as Richard Wilbur has written, that love calls us to the things of the world, then we are called to love, and to be among the things in the world. And we are called to clear—with a hurdle, or by inching our way under or around—the fear, the self-interest, the self-hate, the resistance to awe, the fatigue-induced numbness, the doomscrolling, the little lies we consent to, and the big ones, too.

To say that the works in this issue offer a means of clearing is not to say they are an escape, or a purification, or a rejection of reality. Rather, they are an honest reckoning with the life of the spirit as it is: weary, joyful, courageous, angry. We are honored to share the words herein with you and grateful for the wisdom and heart and skill of our contributors, who teach us that although participating in “the widening of worlds between breaths” (Ephraim Scott Sommers) may feel like a risk, “splitting open is the cost / of advent” (Brittany Deininger).

Not all risk is beautiful, of course—sometimes a trust fall is foolish, downright wrong—but beauty does, at times, require a leap of faith, as Mario Loprete’s cover image suggests. How do we balance in ourselves a yearning to make and witness and shelter joy when we see in our own “homelands” (Jack R. Johnson) friends, neighbors, family, and colleagues being disappeared right before our eyes? How do we remain “open to the beauty of the world” (Johnson) when anything precious feels too loud and anything ugly too common?

Perhaps we can look to the poets for an answer. When Ben Egerton reminds us that poetry, “chiseled into stone in public places,” is both “public and private,” “spoken and heard,” we remember that we carry something sacred inside of ourselves. Some might call that art. We call it love.

We are thrilled to share with you the love wrought in Issue 18.

Sincerely,

Remi Recchia, Mindy Misener, and Ren Manuel
Editors
January 2026

Poetry

The Call
Angela Sorby

Credo
Jeremy Teddy Karn

Ode to Boxed Breathing with a Still-Life Cigarette
To a Colby I Knew Once Who Wrote Me After Many Years
Ephraim Scott Sommers

Pool Party
Erin Carlyle

Eviction
Rapture at Point Lobos, California
Hallowed Turf
Ben Egerton

Spider Crab
David Pitcher

childsafe
Christianna Soumakis

Lily Study for an Annunciation
Bird Study for an Annunciation
Wound
Brittany Deininger