Editor’s Notes

Dear Readers,

Welcome to our June issue. Our four featured poets offer bittersweet music, rickety motel beds, broken wings, and windshield smudges. Seems to me this is a bittersweet time. How to cope? Read poetry, of course. Or write it. Or both. I hope you're managing ok, getting all the vaccines you can and still maintaining all the necessary precautions. I take things one breath at a time, but this pandemic has been one long, ragged and laboured, mask-covered, socially distant breath. I'm not going to sugar-coat things or say we'll all be back at readings again soon. Let's wait and see. Bide our time. Get lost in poetry together.

The Tree Reading Series will take place on the day the issue launches, June 15. Later in the week, you can enjoy the red, red rose of Robbie Burns' poesie and later in the month enjoy the storytelling of Richard Van Camp via the Ottawa International Writers Festival. And once things open up and we're all comfortable again, we can browse the soon-to-be-expanded Perfect Books in person and pick up a bunch of poetry books.

Thanks to our selection committee this month:

Jesse Aubin
Wes Babcock
Ellen Chang-Richardson
Dan Boland
Margo Lapierre
Stephanie Mason
Kemisha Newman
Jade Riordan
Marjorie Silverman
Carol A. Stephen
JC Sulzenko

Thanks to this month's contributors, to everyone who submitted poems, to you for supporting us.

If you have comments, questions, suggestions or wild roses to offer, please contact me at amanda@bywords.ca.

Amanda Earl

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