Editorial Spring 2026

As Spring turns to Summer this issue is a reflection of our present. Our country, broken by utter corruption, is attacking us all based on racism, sexism, manufactured xenophobia and class. Beyond our borders, it is attacking and threatening countries not threatening us, attempting to usher in a new era of brutal colonialism. The plague of violent masked thugs continues with record funding. Concentration camps proliferate and ICE goons are now attacking and beating protesters, already labeled as "internal enemies."

Poets in this collection speak to the reality we all feel of fear, of depression, disgust and rage as living becomes more difficult and the future unravels before our eyes. A few poems speak to the changing of attitudes by government workers who didn't sign up for what is now being demanded of them. Other poems voice the frustration of rising unemployment and costs; of living in an imploding economy with the greatest wealth disparity in history. Our poems speak for teachers and students in a system being deconstructed by its government There are concerted efforts by the embedded corporate media and government to push jingoistic celebrations of patriotism around the anniversary of our nation's founding, even as our constitutional rights are being eviscerated and our history erased or rewritten. We are too enraged to fall for this garbage. We do not want parades with tanks and goose-steppers. We do not want de-jobbing, or de-education. We do not want endless war and genocide. We do not want the image and name of a president draped everywhere in dictator fashion.. We do not want roving thugs beating and kidnapping people and tearing families apart. We do not want intrusive cameras everywhere tied to a national insecurity network or our personal information stolen or abused. We felt much more reason for pride when our nation helped defeat the genocidal fascism of the Axis than we do with our own leadership arming genocide and declaring antifascists and protesters to be "terrorists."

What is needed is not shallow pseudo-patriotic hoopla. We need citizen solidarity beyond cultivated partisan division to overcome an increasingly aggressive and oppressive regime. A recent poll found over 90% of us wanting to ban the private and dark money that got us here from politics at all levels and a return to constitutional governance and human rights. This issue could be a uniting and empowering goal which has truly revolutionary potential. Abolishing corporate rule should be our primary focus and it is becoming a central issue for progressives.

If there is anything positive here, it is that the monstrosity of this ugly, shortsighted fascist misleadership has exposed the corporatocracy for what it is, radicalizing a growing majority in opposition beyond Trump himself. We see this in growing activism and the election of fighting progressives in primaries across the country, much to the discomfort of corporate politicians and their wealthy (and foreign) backers. Our national rage is reaching critical mass. Together we reject and stand against this dangerously insane administration, foisted on us by a corporate-military junta. As this and other collections continue to show, it's not just you or me. Together, we are the majority and, when united, we have the power to take our country not back, but forward.