Given our small staff, it was inevitable that the pandemic caused some delays in our process. Issue Fourteen has seen multiple publication delays as we juggled bouts with COVID-19, young children, and the start of new jobs. It has been a difficult time for many in the literary community. For a profession that is often based around donated time and energy, the pandemic has created unique stressors that not every literary magazine has been able to overcome.
Despite these circumstances, the perseverance of our literary editors and magazines should remind us of how important we believe art is to the world. My own resolve has been tested, but what has kept me going was this stubborn belief in art. There is never a time that art is not important, but it seems to have taken on a certain urgency when so much of our American social and political life is wrought with division, tension, and distraction. Art can unite. It can rebel. It can provide quiet comfort or enflame the heart. Whatever art is for us, we need it.
To my Issue Fourteen contributors, I want to thank you for your patience over the last few months as I delayed the release of the issue. And for our readers, welcome back. David, John, Adam, and I are proud to finally present Issue Fourteen.
The issue is special for several reasons. First of all, we are excited to announce the winner of the 2021 Joe Bolton Poetry Award: Susan O’dell Underwood!
Each night the night-time wiseacre sky
– from “God as Tourists’ Aurora Borealis”
will not budge—
dark after dark
refusal like a stubborn grimace,
lips cupped around the teeth.
And a congratulations to our Runner-Up, Mary Ardery (a fellow Hoosier), and our Honorable Mention, K.E. Ogden!
Secondly, we are very proud and excited to publish in this issue a previously unpublished poem by Joe Bolton himself. There is a larger project underway behind the scenes, a collaboration between Twyckenham Notes and 42 Miles Press regarding the unpublished work of Joe Bolton. While we are not announcing this project outright, we are very proud to bring a never before seen poem of Joe Bolton’s into the world. We hope you enjoy “Composition in Red and Gold.”
Here is the complete list of featured artists:
Poetry: Joe Bolton, Susan O’Dell Underwood, Mary Ardery, K.E. Ogden, Elisabeth Murawski, Bill O’Connell, Deborah Schwartz, Roy Bentley, Laura Ohlmann, Emily Kingery, Tony Hamilton, Kimberly Kralowec, Lina Marino, Charles Kell, and Forrest Rapier.
Visual Art: Lee Miller, Toti O’Brien, GJ Gillespie, and Dréa Collage.
Twyckenham Notes 