Spring 2025
Letter from the Editor
You can’t do sketches enough. Sketch everything and keep your curiosity fresh.
– John Singer Sargent, American artist
Almost ten years ago, I joined the editorial team for Citron after serving as a guest Poetry Editor in the Spring for the Summer 2015 Issue. Since then we have published two anthologies for our 10th and 15th anniversaries, special themed issues, as well as book reviews and author interviews in our feature section, Zest.
Sometimes I go back and read the early issues, looking for writers that I didn’t know then but now have become familiar. I love how reading work more than once adds details to the first impression. A first read is a quick sketch, and subsequent readings add the underpainting of an oil painting until the final layer reveals all. The story was always there, but with each return we have gained new colors and details.
I have been on leave this spring, and that includes a break from Citron. I am grateful for the way the Citron editors and readers gave me this space. Lately, during this break I have been doing quick pen sketches. It’s also the first National Poetry Month that I haven’t written or engaged in a challenge in almost twenty years.
Because I am working quickly and with ink I have to accept the mistakes in proportion and perspective, but it’s relaxing to complete something that can be put away without much thought. What I like the most about quick sketches is the way they capture our curiosity.
In my office, I have one of the only pieces of mine that I’ve kept. It’s a sketch from Crete that I did one morning after breakfast near the sea while sharing watercolors and colored pens with a young girl. We didn’t talk, and I left the pens with her when we both were done. It’s one of my favorite memories.
No matter when you joined us as a reader, if it was 15 years ago or today, we hope that you go back to our previous issues and look through them for names that you know or to discover new writers. Our spring issue is lush with sketches that captured our editors and readers attention.
Wherever this issue may find you, on behalf of The Citron Review, we hope your days are filled with curiosity.
Angela M. Brommel
Editor-in-Chief
Poetry Editor
The Citron Review
Masthead
Table of Contents
Poetry
Notes on the selections by JR Walsh
| Sarah Wetzel | Many foxes are called an earth | |
| Michael Tyrell | Welcome Back | |
| Hana Damon-Tollenaere | Blockprint of Bad Timing | |
| Abby E. Murray | Saying Grace | |
Creative Nonfiction
Notes on the selections by Ronit Plank
| Marin Sardy | Northern Lights | |
| Hannah White | A Poem | |
| Sandra Carlson Khalil | Belle-Mère | |
| Angela Townsend | Lord, Make Me Farfalle | |
| Susan Gilbert Guerrant | In Heaven and Earth | |
Flash Fiction
Notes on the selections by Guest Flash Fiction Editor Carolyn Abram
| Samia Ahmed | ||
| Alison Morretta | ||
| Zenith Knox | Surrender at the Korean Store: A Silent Film, Starring Kenny Kenny Kenny | |
| Amita Basu | Baton |
Micros
Notes on the selections by JR Walsh
| Michael Czyzniejewski |
Hitchhiker 49 | |
| Lindsey Royal Wayland | My Simplicity Day Ninety |
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| Piper Pugh | Chewing Gum | |
| Zebulon Huset | ||
| Zoé Mahfouz | Olivia | |
| Lia Tjokro | Long Distance Call | |
Zest
Find our best interviews and reviews.
The Citron Review 