Announcing our Call for Submissions for Issue 7 of Panoply, now through Sunday, July 23. (We plan to close the call at 11:59 pm US Central time.) We plan to publish Issue 7 on or about August 18. To submit, please visit: Panoply’s Submittable Page.

Some key submissions criteria:

• Unpublished pieces only.
• Simultaneous submissions are ok, but please notify us ASAP if a piece is withdrawn.
• Poetry or short prose (<=500 words for prose – We’ve had to decline some prose pieces that were above our word count limit. Please comply.)
• We read 100% blind. Do not put your name or other identifying information on the pieces. Use Submittable’s Bio/Notes box for your personal bio of <=60 words.
• Maximum of 3 pieces per submission.
• Please submit ONE attachment, preferably in MS WORD, with each piece beginning on a new page.
• Please submit in 12 pt font, preferably something popular such as Times New Roman, Calibri, or Arial.
• We prefer single-spaced formats, except when alternate spacing is a deliberate part of the layout.
• Our software limits our ability to indent and create horizontal space across a line of text. We’ll do our best to preserve original formats, but keep in mind our limitations.
• Hard copy will not be accepted and will be destroyed.
• Issue 7 is unthemed.
• We tend to respond to most pieces after the window has closed. So, please be patient as you await our reply.

Thanks for thinking of Panoply! We look forward to reading your work.

Best wishes,

Andrea, Jeff, and Ryn, Editors

Please enjoy our contributors reading their pieces, which were named Editors’ Choices for Issue 6.

“Blackbird: Watcher in the Desert,” by Delores Merrill

 

Delores Busbee Merrill, Niceville Florida. With an MFA in Theatre and MA in Creative Writing she taught at a college in south Alabama then retired from working in theatre at a college in northwest Florida. She has had plays produced locally and regionally, poetry, short fiction and nonfiction published in literary magazines and various chapbooks, and has won photography ribbons in regional competitions.

 

 

“On the Funeral of a Rice Farmer,” by Ryan Thorpe

Dr. Ryan Thorpe teaches creative writing and literature at the University of Michigan-Shanghai Jiao Tong University Joint Institute. He is the fiction and poetry editor of The Shanghai Literary Review and manages a public workshop for anyone interested in creative writing. He writes columns for The Global Times, has published in numerous literary journals, and is currently working on a creative writing textbook. More information on his work can be found at www.rythorpe.com

 

“Photo of Mom on the Beach, 1950,” by Kathleen Strafford

Kathleen Strafford is a student at Trinity University in Leeds studying for her MA in creative writing.  She hopes her first collection of poetry will be published this coming year after graduation, called Her Own Language.  She has been published in magazines & online:  Interpreter’s House; Butcher’s Dog; Algebra of Owls; Fat Damsel; Cinnamon Press Reaching Out’anthology; Trinity’s Journeys; Trinity’s 50th Anniversary Anthology in 2017.

 

“Silly Drunk Mentioning,” by Kristin Fullerton

Kristin Fullerton currently resides in upstate New York with bucolic views of the Helderberg Escarpment from her very own backyard. She is a proud alumna of both Elmira College and University at Albany. Her poems have recently appeared in The Maine Review and Up the River Volume 4 and online at Zetetic.org.

 

“Once Planed Straight,” by Steve Gerson

Steve Gerson is an emeritus professor who has spent his entire life focusing on academic publications. Now in retirement, he has the opportunity to think . . . and to write creatively rather than academically, to release his inner poet.

 

Welcome back to Panoply. We’re thrilled and honored to share our first themed issue, this one related to “daylight.” Our contributors responded with inspiration, which we hope will prove illuminating. So many of these pieces bask in the light, but a few may surprise you. Daylight can play many roles. Enjoy exploring the dark side of the light.

Once again, we thank our readers, our contributors, our benefactors, and all of you who share in our joy in creating and sharing Panoply. 

Issue 7 will arrive in the fall, un-themed. Look for that Call for Submissions to open in late June. And don’t forget we’re now reviewing chapbooks, with our first review nearly secured for later this month. In the meantime, take a breath, take a walk, soak up a little Vitamin D. Happy reading.

Please like our Facebook page: Facebook Panoply Page

Best wishes,

Andrea, Jeff, and Ryn
Editors, Panoply

Contents
Anoesis – John C. Mannone
April Morning – Virginia Barrett
Arrival – Robert Miltner
As the Parking Lots Lights Flicker – Ki Russell
August – William Blome
Blackbird: Watcher in the Desert – Delores Merrill
Blown Away – Joan McNerney
By the Light of Dawn – Natalie Crick
Chasing Pictograms – Richard King Perkins II
Covered – Sarah Clauson
Daffodils for Papa – Mikaela Curry
Dawn – Sarah Snyder
day – light savings – Ren Weber
Day/ Breaks – Julie Naslund
December Daylight – Patricia Nelson
Desert Wild Flowers – Mike Beck
devil as night / god as day – Kris Tammer
Glance – Barbara Lawhorn
Gulls – J. Thomas Burke
Harbinger – Jenifer DeBellis
Heliotrope – Cathryn Essinger
In a Winter Window – Susan Huebner
It’s Like This – Ivy Page
Joy – Jenny Benjamin
Keske XIV – Jennifer A. Reimer
A Lace Stone Wall at Randall’s Ordinary – Eleanor Kedney
Little Birds – Lauren Scharhag
Marriage – Michael Blaine
Morning – Aaron Dargis
Morning – K. Carlton Johnson
Morning in the North Country – Tom Montag
Nankoweap – Rick Kempa
Natural Light – Neil Leadbeater
New Year’s Day Miscalculation – Lynn Houston
Northwest Winter Day – Joan Moritz
On the Funeral of a Rice Farmer – Ryan Thorpe
Once Planed Straight – Steve Gerson
One Memory I Had of Summer – Gina Ferrara
Past Noon – Ann Howells
Patterns of Intimacy – Heather Gemmen Wilson
Phengophilia – Michael Estabrook
Photo of Mom on the Beach 1950 – Kathleen Strafford
Poems – Lola Haskins
The Position of the Sun – Sabrina Hicks
Rain Delay – Early Innings – Bruce Robinson
Self-Portrait – Kirsten Hemmy
A Shaft of Sunlight – Patrick Dixon
Silly Drunk Mentioning – Kristin Fullerton
Soham – Lloyd Milburn
Sunken Ships on Fire – Devon Balwit
Sunrise on Llŷn – Aziz Dixon
Synthesis – Carol Berg
The Third Wish: New Dawn – Rachel Dacus
This Morning – Steve Klepetar
This World’s Light – Lois Harrod
Thursdays, 4-7 – Mercedes Lawry
Venusian Engagement – Rachel Reese
vulture sets the world ablaze – Sanjida Yasmin
Wedding Portraits – Diane Kendig
Welcome – Mary Ellen Talley

Andrea, Jeff, and Ryn had a ball at Say the Word in Niceville, FL, joining our gracious hosts Sarah Clauson and Rachel Reese, along with a wide array of talented poets for a night of joy, good cheer, observation, and speaking out. What a way to kick-off Poetry Month! Here we are just before the festivities began.

Again, we thank those who have donated to our financial cause:

• Tobi Alfier
• William Blome
• Alan Harris
• Sabrina Hicks
• Carolyn Martin (twice!)
• Tracy Mishkin
• James Penha
• Rachel Reese
• Plus newcomers Eleanor Kedney, Bruce Robinson, and Alec Solomita

If you’d like to donate to our financial cause, feel free to use the PayPal link in the right margin.

We’re finishing up Issue 6, the “daylight” theme, which is due on or around May 5. See you then! Thanks for visiting Panoply!

Yours always,

Andrea, Jeff, and Ryn
Editors

Following requests from our readers, we’ve agreed to begin reviewing up to 3 chapbooks per year, beginning around early July. We’d be honored and pleased to review your work in some depth. Our specifications:

• 1 review at a time
• Likely timing for reviews to appear: March, July, November (These dates are at about the midpoint of our 3 issues each year.)
• Your chapbook must be recently or imminently published, preferably within 30 days of the publication of our review.
• We ask that qualifying chapbooks be sent to us with at least 30 days’ notice. For instance, we’d like to see chapbook MS for the early July publication around the end of May – beginning of June.
• We will prepare a “full” review of about 500-750 words to appear on Panoply and to be promoted on our Facebook page. We will also write a “blurb,” which we ask to be included somewhere in your publication.
• We will choose which chapbook MS to review and notify all submitters as promptly as possible. For the time being, we foresee a submission via Submittable, with some specific notation in the title of the submission that you’re submitting a chapbook MS. (Please do not submit until we firm this up. Feel free to inquire with a comment here. We will respond promptly.)
• We’ll ask for a head shot, bio, and if available, cover art, to be included in our review.

With so much wonderful work out there, we look forward to making the tough choice of which chapbook to review each time and pledge to treat your work with the greatest care and respect.

By the way, don’t forget that Issue 6’s Call for Submissions is open now, closing April 2 at 11:59 pm US Central time. Our theme is “daylight.” Please consider submitting poetry and/or short prose related to this theme. For details, please visit: Panoply’s Submittable Page.

Thanks for thinking of Panoply,

Andrea, Jeff, and Ryn
Editors

Pressing on in attitude and behavior can be a supreme affirmation. Leigh Allen shows how with this weeks’ Editors’ Choice, Waking – Leigh Allen. To watch Leigh read her piece, please visit: Panoply’s Facebook Page.

Also enjoy our second Editors’ Choice for the week, Van Gogh in Love – Ann Howells, an amusing “look back” with Vincent in soliloquy or via a recently-discovered diary entry.

For earlier Issue 5 Editors’ Choice, click here: Midnight Garden Walk, Key West – Katherine Gekker, The Merchant Marine’s Lover – Matthew Schmeer, Punishment for Moral Deviation – Jude Marr  and Second Daughter Song – Jody Burke-Kaiser.

What a way to start 2017! We’re thrilled and honored to publish Issue 5 of Panoply, featuring works from 25 US States and 6 foreign countries. We hope you enjoy the variety once again, as Issue 5 includes poems about kissing, pregnancy, protests, politics, homages to artists and musicians, humor in many forms, recovery and redemption, some fascinating steps back in time, colorful character sketches, and more. There’s even a ditty about “breakfast cereal!” As usual, we thank our talented, visionary, and courageous contributors.

Remember that Issue 6 will be themed: Daylight. More on that as we move forward. In the meantime, enjoy Issue 5 with our compliments!

Please like our Facebook page: Panoply Facebook Page.

May this year bring you joy, peace, wisdom, and good health!

Andrea, Jeff, and Ryn, Editors

Contents, Issue 5

After Her Father Died – Maria Pascualy
After Visiting the Lourdes of Lebanon – CW Emerson
The Alternative Ending – Catharine Bramkamp
Cat – Paul Vaughan
Cheering the Ponies w/God – Mike Jurkovic
The Condo – Petrula Laudato
County Fair – James Penha
Cry Havoc and Let Slip – Jennifer Highland
Discovery — 30th street, 2:56 PM – Ben Rader
Dog Day Cigarette – Alec Solomita
Exploring the Mountain Range – Martin Willitts, Jr.
From the Back Porch – Sharon Scholl
The Guest – Rowena Cooper
Harbor Mnemosyne – Caroline Simpson
Here – Kendalyn McKisick
How to Keep Your Hungry Ghost Fed – C Derick Varn
I Just Got Back – Georgia Park
If I Had a Way… – Ndaba Sibanda
If Maps Were Hummingbirds – Shankar Narayan
In Search of Meaning – Jan Wiezorek
Jackass Flats – Larisa Harriger
Jagged – Robert Beveridge
Jubilee – Daniel Fitzpatrick
Kiss – Carolyn Martin
Letter from the Great Grandchildren – Ken Poyner
Life in the Past Lane – Alan Harris
Lurk – Linda Bonafield
May 6, 988 – William Allegrezza, Garin Cycholl, Kirk Robinson
The Merchant Marine’s Lover – Matthew Schmeer
Midnight Garden Walk, Key West – Katherine Gekker
Near the Mine – Dustin Pickering
New York Love Poem – Daryl Sznyter
Night Sitting – Seth Jani
November Nights – Deonte Osayande
Old Photographs – Steve Klepetar
Old Woman in a Dry Season – Claire Scott
On the Inclines of a Dune – Thomas Erickson
Pregnancy Pantoum – Kari Flickinger
Prometheus – Charlotte Pocock
Punishment for Moral Deviation – Jude Marr
Raison d’Etre Bran – Nick Romeo
Refusal – Sandra Kohler
Retire to the Netherlands – William Auten
Rhetorical/Waiting – Nate Maxson
Second Daughter Song – Jody Burke-Kaiser
Sliver of Sunlight – Lois Marie Harrod
Take Two – Jim Ross
Teach Me to Float – Ashanti Anderson
Technique – Dennis Caswell
Third Stool from the End – JB Mulligan
The Third Trimester – Minna Dubin
A Thousand Voices Long – Scott Wiggerman
Va cantando – Susanna Lang
Van Gogh in Love – Ann Howells
Waking – Leigh Allen
What the Rain Forgot – James Walton
What We Need – Lea Galanter
Your Inevitable Ghost – William Doreski