Another new issue of Shot Glass Journal, Issue #23, marks another year of quality poetry. Poets, both new to Shot Glass Journal and returning poets ranging in ages from high school and up, have offered their unique styles of poetic voice.

I am often moved by the bios or cover sheets our poets send with their submissions. In this recent issue one poet had this to say: "short poetry is the hardest thing of all to do, and I think gets a hard press, like comedy in the world of film making"

Another poet, writing in a particular form called "byte", had this to say: "I've found myself driven to reclaim the "tweet" medium as a place of power, to re-tune my language so that I might enter into that space and push it as far as I can, push it until it breaks open from the inside."

Someone said recently that poetry lifts them momentarily and then you go on living your life. And this is the reason I continue to enjoy presenting our readers with the kind of poetry I love to read.

This issue includes free verse and formal verse poems from Australia, Canada, France, India, Ireland, New Zealand, Philippines, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, the UK and the US.

Be sure to visit our Writers Archive section to read poets published in previous issues of Shot Glass Journal, and our Archive section to read previously posted journals. Check out the Glossary for some of the poetry forms published in this issue.

We hope you enjoy Issue #23.

– Mary-Jane Grandinetti

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