from the ether

on Hope

QUICK! What do a unicyclist, a restoration ecologist, an immigrant editor, a flutist, and a digital artist have in common? They all have work appearing in the new Winter 2024 issue of DMQ Review. That’s one thing I love about poets—diversity! So few of us can support ourselves with art alone that we represent a wide variety of vocations and avocations alike. We can and must juggle writing with outside careers. So too our editorial team. But the common bond lies in a love of wordsmithing, in the attention to sound, sense, breath, rhythm, and image in language. And in this, our fifth all-prose poem issue, a love of working poetry’s magic in the absence of artificial line break.

Submissions for this issue began back in October. The shadow of the past four years still colors much of the work sent our way, from Peter Kline’s “Pandemic Feature: Star Wars,” to subtler shades that nuance many of the other

poems included. These are important voices reminding us of what we have endured and that we can endure. A poem is an act of hope itself, a phoenix rising from loss. Though most poems are begun well before publication, their relatability reminds us that we are still emerging from the many sorrows of the pandemic, as well as from the personal losses common to us all. Poems can sound those depths, mark the highs, and in doing so help each of us find insight through shared experiences. A way back to our whole selves.

How grateful we are for the poems that voice our sorrows and give us hope through the resiliency of memorable words. How especially grateful we are for the voices that remind us of life’s also-enduring loves, beauty, and renewal, for those that make us smile. The essence of hope itself.

Thanks for joining us here in late winter 2024 as we yearn toward spring and the greening of things. In this spirit, we share these poems and the remarkable images of our talented featured artist Yolanda Fundora with you.

from the Ether,

Sally Ashton
Editor-in-Chief

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