Hello, and welcome to our Spring 2021 Issue!
This issue includes poems about: the peculiar stench of the Bradford pear tree, love and sex, sickness and anxiety, having the blues in spring time, ancestry, assimilation, stress, trauma, and we also have two wildly differing self portrait poems in this issue (one riffing off of a very popular children’s book). Hopefully, I have piqued your interest, and you will peruse the issue to find out more!
We also have 5 wonderful artists in the issue, two of which contributed visual poems for their features. Please note that we are always open to receiving submissions of visual poetry.
Also be sure to read my interview with phenomenal poet (and my mentor), Alessandra Lynch. Her new book, Pretty Tripwire, just came out with Alice James Books. Lynch goes into detail about her writing process for the book, her use of Roethke epigraphs, the importance of nature in her work, her garden, the physicality of writing, and she gifts us with a comprehensive list of must see places in and around Indianapolis.
We are fast approaching our 4 year anniversary of The Indianapolis Review! I put out a call for submissions in the spring of 2017, and we published our first issue that summer. I want to thank all of our readers and contributors, as well as my brilliant staff for making this journal so solid and successful. I learn so much from all of you, and I am honored to publish the amazing work that we receive.
Many of you already know this, but we have another special issue coming up! We put out a call for Fall of 2021, “Poets Are Funny.” If you have humorous poetry or humorous prose about the poetry biz, send it our way! Details are on our submissions page.
I hope you enjoy the issue !
Natalie Solmer
Editor In Chief
Indianapolis, April 2021