In DC this week, the buds on cherry trees began to bloom, a transformation into color and fragrance that reminds us of both the beauty and the brevity of things. This recognition of the temporality of the processes that compose our world–arising, and passing away, and then arising anew–is a theme of our spring issue.
Issue Thirty-Two begins with music, with the creation of structures out of words: the speaker of Amber Cecile Brodie’s poem “Mountain Songs” wants to make four sonnets out of words taken from Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. The sentiment is a beautiful one, but it is coupled with loss: “I told you I felt like this / all the time, and maybe that’s why / you left.” The work in this issue explores these connections between song and word and world and loss, in an effort, perhaps, to take the “one last look” that concludes Becky Boling’s poem “Lot’s Wife.” There is a desire to find beauty here, even if, as DJ Bennett’s speaker admits, “I make it more beautiful than it is.” The spring brings forth song, but it also reminds us of the tilting toward loss, looking both back in time to recall lost beauty and also forward, recognizing our own perilous fragility.
Issue Thirty-Two includes poetry and prose by Alexandra Risley Schroeder, Amber Cecile Brodie, Angela Townsend, Becky Boling, Bridget Ramsey, D. E. Green, David Capps, David Q. Hutcheson-Tipton, DJ Bennett, DS Maolalai, Elizabeth Birch, Joseph Hunter, Joseph Kenyon, Kathleen Calby, Lisa Ashley, Maggie Russell, Ray Corvi, Rebecca A. Spears, Stephanie Elizabeth Mohr, Steve McCown, and Yalda Al-Ani. The issue’s cover art is by W Goodwin, and the issue includes more of Goodwin’s work.
Digital and print versions of our spring issue are available through Mag Cloud. Digital versions of the issue are free, and perfect-bound print copies of the issue cost twelve dollars. You can order print copies and read the issue online at this link.
WILLOWS WEPT REVIEW 