Editor's Note, Sarah Adeyemo (June 2026)
Editor’s Note
Memory, in the phrase of Oliver Tearle, is an
“exercise in nostalgia”. We visit our past to regret decisions, laugh out loud
at joyful moments, and seek answers to an endless list of questions. In this
issue, we have curated a collection of 39 poems from poets visiting the space
between past and present
Jane Berger walks us through the “scouring memory” of a traumatic childhood experience in “Four Years Old,” both becoming and comforting the little girl she was.
“Elephant” by M.D. Skeen shows how personal recollection can be selective and painful. The poet's use of detail and direct address makes us see how two people can experience the same event but remember it differently.
Marie Burdett’s tender “Love in Memoriam” keeps love alive despite the sharpness of a lover's absence.
Sometimes you remember with all your senses. In Stephen Mead's “The Wearable Scrapbook,” memory is stored in objects as something tactile, not abstract.
Memory can be confrontational. In Louis Faber's “Ode to my Tumor,” the speaker addresses a soon-to-be removed tumor “in a place I was certain/you had put me only weeks ago.”
Reader, I will stop here to allow you to read. All the poems in this issue are experience recollected through memory, and I trust they will resonate with you. Dive into them to witness the power of memory.
Happy reading!
Sarah Adeyemo
June 7, 2026
Oye-Ekiti, Ekiti State, Nigeria
Jane Berger walks us through the “scouring memory” of a traumatic childhood experience in “Four Years Old,” both becoming and comforting the little girl she was.
“Elephant” by M.D. Skeen shows how personal recollection can be selective and painful. The poet's use of detail and direct address makes us see how two people can experience the same event but remember it differently.
Marie Burdett’s tender “Love in Memoriam” keeps love alive despite the sharpness of a lover's absence.
Sometimes you remember with all your senses. In Stephen Mead's “The Wearable Scrapbook,” memory is stored in objects as something tactile, not abstract.
Memory can be confrontational. In Louis Faber's “Ode to my Tumor,” the speaker addresses a soon-to-be removed tumor “in a place I was certain/you had put me only weeks ago.”
Reader, I will stop here to allow you to read. All the poems in this issue are experience recollected through memory, and I trust they will resonate with you. Dive into them to witness the power of memory.
Happy reading!
Sarah Adeyemo
June 7, 2026
Oye-Ekiti, Ekiti State, Nigeria
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