Editor's Note, Alex Rettie (March 2026)

 

Editor’s Note

Dear Readers,
Welcome to the March 2026 issue of Poems for Persons of Interest! This issue features poems and translations from 29 wonderful writers representing all 6 continents, including:
 

• Bronwyn C, who marks her first publication credit with a surprising, sensuous translation of Sappho 31.
• Tonye George whose “Kenopsia Coil” offers up the haunting fragments that remain after loss.
• J.C. Scharl, who turns the humble CVS or Rexall into a site of wonder and wisdom in “Drugstore.”
• Gerald Yelle, who digs for bones he didn’t bury, and finds them, in “Glory Be to Mullet-Headed Thunder Gods.”
  

 The poems in this issue address the full wonder and catastrophe of the human condition – love, death, hope and joy – in free verse, in rhymed metrical forms, with longing, with compassion, and with humour. The word count of the whole thing is just over six thousand, and I am impressed, if not surprised, at just how much poetry can squeeze into so few words.
 
Happy reading,
 
Alex Rettie
March 18, 2026
Calgary, AB