With highs in the low eighties, it’s hard to conjure a feeling of winter here in central Florida. But there is a sense of winter in the sky before dawn, not in the warm and humid air, but in the positions of the stars: the Pleiades and Orion, especially.

KB Ballentine’s poem “Sifting Stars” speaks of this pre-dawn experience, one where “Like molasses / heat slides the horizon.” Although I have found a feeling of wholeness in these moments (not “left wanting,” as the poem’s speaker laments), I also know something of that wanting feeling, especially as I wonder about the groves that used to lie just north of town, wonder about the coyotes I used to see during these pre-dawn moments.

Issue Twenty-Three opens with a pair of poems by Pearl Button that explore the relationship we have with the rest of the natural world, and especially what happens in the confluence of violence, loss, imagination, and intersubjectivity. The issue also includes poetry and prose by KB Ballentine, Becky Boling, AG Compaine, Benjamin Cutler, Catherine Reid Day, George Franklin, D.E. Green, John Grey, Richard Holinger, James Ross Kelly, Frederick Livingston, Steven McCown, R.F. Mechelke, Karen Neuberg, Michael Sandler, and Marly Youmans as well as a series of images by Jennifer Weigel.

Digital and print versions of our winter issue are available through Mag Cloud. Digital versions of the issue are free, and perfect-bound print copies of the issue will cost twelve dollars. You can order print copies and read the issue online at this link.