Summary

Issue 15: Walking through Clouds is a (mostly) micro- (yet double-sized!) issue featuring micropoetry, microprose, short videos, and micropoetry-related artwork from writers and artists around the world. It is also the last issue of Gnarled Oak.

Read online | Read the PDF (click to read online, right-click & save-as to download)

Contents

Poetry — Robin Turner

old friends — David He

Haiku for the Lost — Marie Craven

mosquitoes — Ben Groner III

night party — Blessed Ayeyame

Black ants carrying — Dennis Andrew S. Aguinaldo

Moth — Mary McCarthy

Leaves — Olivier Schopfer

That Great City — Grove Koger

on the edge of town — Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco

Upside Down — Tiffany Shaw-Diaz

through my eyelids —Bill Waters

stormwater drain — Shrikaanth Krishnamurthy

we’re still expecting — Chibųìhè Obi

rainy afternoon — Praniti Gulyani

Fog — Meghan DePeau

fog blanket — Devin Harrison

summer’s end — Hifsa Ashraf

Coal Bucket — Gareth Culshaw

Crushed Bits — Jeff Bagato

the darkest — Jan Benson

Deprived — Daya Bhat

And still you remain — H. G. Warrender

Ice — Mike Gallagher

a bridge — Robert Witmer

solstice night — Debbie Strange

Spring Again — Fabrice Poussin

Solar Therapy — Marie Craven

Consider pigeons — Kris Lindbeck

Job 30:29b — Laura M. Kaminski

Missing birds — Steve Klepetar

birds feed off of me — Jamie O’Connell

two crows — Kris Lindbeck

Arr. for viola — Jean Morris

Through the Woods — Aliisa Hyslop

I end up at the same place — Chumki Sharma

Everything Ends With Amen — Laura M. Kaminski

Editor’s Note

Four years ago, when I was putting together the acknowledgements page for the collection that became Highway Sky, I was saddened to see that so many of the wonderful online journals that had published a fair number of those poems were no longer active. They had all done good work, but the editors had moved on.

I was eager to try to give something back to the online poetry community from which I had gotten so much when I started to write poetry seriously in 2009. And I had this site that wasn’t doing anything, so late in the summer of 2014, I started rebuilding the site. I didn’t do anything more original than just steal ideas I liked from various journals that had been gracious enough to publish my own work. 

Not sure anyone would submit, I sent emails out to writers and artists whose work I admired and to my surprise I got enough responses for the first issue. And then more and more over the years. At first, I think I knew most of the people who submitted but it wasn’t long before I started getting submissions—wonderful submissions—from writers and artists whose work was new to me.

I suppose I figured it would stay small, maybe last a year or so, but it grew and developed an international following. For four years, I have had the delight of having an inbox full of wonderful work, and the often painful and exhausting experience of having to return a lot of work that I liked.

The experience of editing a journal for the past four years, a true education in the four-year college of art and literature, has taught me so much. So much about the work that editors put into a journal that is above all a labor or love, but also a renewed appreciation for those who submit. It is to the individual writers and artists who entrust a particular journal with their work, who graciously allow an editor to publish their work that so much thanks should go.

And so I wish to thank in general all those who submitted to Gnarled Oak over the years and for those who gave me the distinct honor of publishing their work. Seriously, I am grateful because without you this never would have gotten off the ground.

Specifically, I would like to thank the following:

Angie Werren who kindly responded to my pleas for submissions to get the first issue going with so much fine work that really set the standard; 

Erica Goss who sent in the very first unsolicited submission—you made my day and gave me more confidence than you’ll know; 

Olivier Schopfer whose images have graced many a cover and even more issues;

Jean Morris for such a wonderful variety of work and for catching typos and errors, your close and careful reading has always been appreciated;

Laura M. Kaminski for your tireless support and promotion, I am truly grateful as well as for all the wonderful poems you let me publish;

and finally, 

Marie Craven and Debbie Strange, true frequent fliers, each of whom had work in nearly every issue right from the start. Thank you for considering this journal worthy of your work.

And to everyone who read Gnarled Oak on a regular basis, who retweeted and shared and liked and otherwise helped promote this journal, you have my thanks.

Gnarled Oak has been fun, and it has been an education, but at the end of the day, it’s time to move on. This has been a labor of love, but I am excited to get back into my own work for a while. And so a thank you to the writers and artists who helped make this last one so special. You’ve truly allowed me to wrap this up in fine style.

See you ‘round the ‘net.

With gratitude and thanks,

James Brush, editor
May 31, 2018

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Gnarled Oak — Issue 15: Walking through Clouds: Read online | Read the PDF (right-click/save-as to download)