Dear Readers,

Welcome to Issue 6 of The Swannanoa Review.

Just this past week in New York, daffodils, forsythia, and hyacinth have popped up; magnolias and cherry blossoms have started to bloom.

It was a long, cold, snowy winter and while we made the most of it—early morning walks in the snow, nighttime sledding—seeing the world come alive again has been a relief.

It’s probably not a surprise then that the poems and prose in these pages are ripe with vivid, vibrant images of life being lived: descriptions of the natural world, investigations into complicated relationships, commentary on the act of art making. 

Take for example Leigh Lucas’ poem “Splash Study” (from her forthcoming book Splashed Things, out next week from BOA!) which remembers the body of a beloved with grief and humor alike. Or Tariq Karibian’s “A Poem About Counting Rice and Corpses,” a seven-line contrapuntal about genocide. Or Johnny Cate’s electric description of a fisherman’s encounter with a shark in “Hammerhead, 1991.” Or Meghan Sterling’s duo of poems that take cues from the life of abstract expressionist painter Lee Krasner. Or Henrik Karoliszyn’s short story “The Channel Rat Pack,” about a group of crooners on the edge of what could be a big break.

But, we should let you read for yourself…

As we always do, we’ve arranged these pieces to be read straight through, in the order presented in our table of contents, to hear the ways they all chime with each other. We can’t wait to hear about what else you discover as you read.

Thanks for joining us again. We feel so fortunate to be able to build a home for new, exciting writing, and even more fortunate that such great writers trust us with their work. 

Onwards and upwards,

Kate Welsh & Reed Turchi

Founding Editors