I have control issues, so it wasn’t easy when I handed over the role of poetry editor to Alexandra Seidel. But, like many things which aren’t easy, it was very much worth doing.

Alexandra has been the sole poetry editor for just over a year now and I’m extremely happy to have her in that position. She’s super efficient, reliable and because she’s allergic to bullshit I can always count on her for blunt answers, feedback or advice when I ask for it. Our poetry slush has never looked more impressive than since she took over as editor and though our tastes don’t always match I do want to take a moment to spotlight a few of my favourite poems that we’ve published since she’s been poetry editor 🙂

My favourite five, in no particular order:

Carnivoyeur by Rebecca Hodgkins – This poem is from the special vampire poetry issue. We actually wanted it to be a straight-up vampire issue, but we never got enough fiction submissions to pull that off. *shrugs* It doesn’t matter. I only mention because this is a vampire poem with a twist. You’re going to love it. Really.

Step
right
UP!

Red Eye by Lisa M. Bradley – Another poem from the vampire issue. This one is so beautifully evocative that I had a very tough time deciding between it and Carnivoyeur for the cover. I fell in love with lines like:

and picked too many locks
her tongue to each keyhole
to learn the mechanism

Give this one a read, you won’t be disappointed.

Crimson-Hooded by Sandi Leibowitz – As you might suspect from this title this is a re-telling of a familiar fairy tale. That’s something I have a great love for, and I thought Sandi’s poem did it very well.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics by Sara Cleto and Brittany Warman – I loved this one. If all the ice and snow imagery doesn’t make you shiver, the story will 🙂

The Maiden-Harp by Sara Cleto – I just now noticed that two of my favourite poems from the past year have the same name in the byline. This, like The Second Law of Thermodynamics, is full of a-freaking-mazing imagery and feels onion-like in its layers. I love it. Love.

~*~

This post has been written as a part of the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. My theme this year is ‘Niteblade‘, which is the magazine I publish. I chose this theme to help draw attention to the magazine during this, it’s 2nd annual fundraiser.

My first post in this series was about choosing stories and poems to nominate for awards and I’ve gone through a similar process in deciding what to write about for these posts. Not only did I have to choose stories and poems I loved, but they also had to fit with the A-Z theme. Tricky!