It’s here! If you, like me, need a bit of comfort and joy as the mercury plummets and the days grow darker yet, take heart: The Orchards Poetry Journal (Winter 2019 issue) is now available and is more gorgeous than ever.

My own small poem (just six lines) is a tiny sliver of biography, an ode to the comfort and joy of an evening at home. Similarly, my longtime friend, Sally Nacker, has a poem in the issue that offers a quiet and quietly content view of the years to come, titled “Old Age.” (It was Sally who sent me the bouquet last March, centered in the photo below.)

As usual, this issue is packed full of skillful and startling poems in a range of forms and moods. If my count is accurate, there are thirty-nine poems by thirty-one poets.

Right up front are four poems by Jean Kreiling, including her winning entry to the Kelsay Books Metrical Writing Contest (“Elegy: One Year in Plymouth”–an elegy from a daughter to her mother celebrating their last year together on the Atlantic coast in language fresh and keen as salt breeze.) The other poems that placed in the contest are included–all very accomplished. I was especially taken with “The Last Dandelion” by Aline Soules and “Pileated Woodpecker” by Barbara Loots.

There are so many other poems I enjoyed (and plan to reread) that if I were to list them all I would be replicating the table of contents. Despite that, I will mention two by Robin Helweg-Larson (“Winter Night Roads” and “Smoke on the Wind”) and two with different but complimentary inspirations from rivers (“My River” by Ace Boggess and “Aware of My Beauty” by Wendy Patrice Williams). Finally, a six-line gem by Neil Kennedy called “When Juliet” wows me–inspired by a famous scene from Shakespeare and calling to my mind Robert Herrick’s “Upon Julia’s Clothes,” these few lines turn all that tradition into something fresh, new, and dazzling.

If you need a moment of insight to light up the blue shadows of some long winter’s night, do dip into this issue of The Orchards Poetry Journal.

Season’s Greetings, and happy reading!

LESLIE