For Someone You Know

Foreword excerpt from Jude Marx

I believe the poems in this anthology are a necessary exercise of courage and hope, one that we can learn from and continue to practice. You’ll find poems about childhood, transformation, the ocean, trees, seeds, friendship, loneliness, violence, grief, the body, skillets, ghosts, cold plunges, names, hugs, and so much more. Each poet (and the 58 poets who shared their work with us as part of this contest, and the poets who have yet to share their work with the world, and the poets who have just begun to write) speaks their existence, their truth to the page. The poets let us know parts of them. May this give us strength to keep on creating and connecting. This book is an invitation for us to reach deeper down into ourselves and truths, and to reach out toward each other.

As Lonny Saleeby writes, in “Root”, “Where will you go/ But deeper down/ Reaching/ For someone you know.”