We’re publishing the Spring 2026 issue in April during National Poetry Month, the same week as International Jazz Day. One of the most influential comments in my writing life occurred when one of my mentors, Vince Gotera, told our class that we all had internal music that shaped our work. He told us that if we learned to recognize it, we would know how to revise our work into our song. 

Funny thing, I told him this a few years ago when I hosted an event with him in Las Vegas. It was something I have told every writing class I have taught for more than twenty years. “Huh,” he said, “I don’t remember saying that.” Even so, he also told us that who we read and who we are in community with shapes our writing. I’ve never forgotten this, and I love this idea that together we become song. 

Today during an afternoon jazz concert with the Shapiro Project, I could have sworn that in between the instruments I could almost hear vocals. Sometimes while listening to music my poetry-brain flips on, but this was the first time that I heard vocals so clearly.  

We have ten outstanding poems in our Spring Issue, and together they create a vibrant song.

Tiffany Promise kicks off our Spring picks with “When Rust is Under Us, We Curse the Sky.” This brief poem is full of color as it reveals so much about the speaker’s childhood. It concludes with a twist, and made us want to read more from this world. 

In “Reading ‘Ave Maria’ A Day After Frank O’Hara’s Birthday,” by Spencer Silverthorne also travels through family history. There’s a wonderful unraveling that happens over five sentences as the speaker shares: I was left alone,/which made me want to star in movies. 

Katie Kemple brings us “Alchemy” and “Ruins.” You may remember her previous 2022/2023 Winter publication, “Under the Buck Moon.” These poems are intimate, in the home, in the body. 

“Flee,” is Jennifer LeBlanc’s erasure of Sir Thomas Wyatt’s “They Flee from Me.” Crisp and strong, that last line is a stunner. 

I love noble dogs and shifting forms. Peter Chiu’s “What the Clouds Have Said” is written in tercets until one one couplet in which the speaker calls out to the dog, from these pale rocks,/now older than we’ve ever been. Chiu’s attention to place in “Ginkgo Leaf” makes for a perfect pairing. 

“Self Portrait as ARM Assembly” by Shyla Ann Shehan finds the poetic in the language of programming. Like the narrator, we’re transfixed.

Kevin Baughman’s stunning five line, “Oak” is about the transformation from acorn to oak. This brief poem is wake-up to remember that it’s not enough to know something, you must also be open to the magic of experiencing it. 

Warmest wishes,
Angela M. Brommel
Editor-in-Chief
Poetry Editor
The Citron Review