Oh, this is fun. I get to say something that everybody will read and love. Or everybody will read and…? Or everybody will skip to get to the good stuff.

Wait! Don’t do that. I know the good stuff comes from our many fine contributors, but I would at least like a chance to say so. Okay, I just did say so, but please allow me to elaborate.

This time around, for our seventh issue of Subprimal Poetry Art/Music, we’ve had the pleasure of receiving many fine submissions. In fact, we had to let some of them go due to production time constraints. Well, due to money constraints too, for this issue marks our first voyage onto the paying market seas. As a human being and a writer, I think that writers ought to get paid. I know it’s not a large sum right now, but we’re looking into ways in which we can increase that.

But back to our writers and artists — and the works they’ve entrusted us with. This issue we received many fine and compelling prose poetry pieces. Well, that’s what I call them and also (as you may know) what I have a special fondness for. Philip Elliott brings us Halcyon Days, a flowing celebration of friendship and love. Adrian S. Potter shares with us Sanctuary, a portrayal of a man whose calluses are “birthed, sore and pleading for caress”, and who… no, I won’t give away the ending. Coming to us from the United States of South Carolina, Tamara Miles gives us a tale of escape and the hope of redemption in The Concertina. And Joel Peckman lends us his voice for Among the Tunnels, dedicated to his father, who, as he puts it, is “far from the distant sounds of the world.”

Look, I could go and I probably will, at least a little bit. People accuse me of being voluble when I sit in front of my keyboard watching the letters march — and in some sense they’re right. The tldr; crowd took a left turn on Facebook Street, but myself and the authors who have shared their works with us this time around know the value of detail, know the value of pulling the reader gently along. I’m not sure I’m doing it right now with these particular paragraphs, but I think you’ll agree that our contributors have done so, and quite nicely indeed.

And it’s precisely because of that, that I’d like to say with much gratitude, thank you. We’ve been fortunate to connect with a wide variety of writers and artists from around the world. I haven’t yet mentioned Sheila Bender (with her beautiful and powerful essay Writing is a Discovering, a Becoming), Lana Bella, Paul Freidinger, Ellen Denton, Karen Berry, Roger Aplon, Kate Viola, Licita Fernandez, Janet Ruhe-Schoen, Vincent Francone, Elaine Mintzer, Trenton Mabey and Brother John The Vagabond — but not because I forgot, rather because the bottom of this page is climbing towards my dits and dots and I must stop now and allow you to get to the real action. Thanks much for your support and your kind messages. And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or winning lottery tickets you’d like to give away, please get in touch.