For those of us who teach, the academic year starts soon, and like returning swallows, here come the emails about faculty meetings and report deadlines, the calls for papers, the revised schedules and unexpected office moves. Soon, but not yet. You’ve come here to spend time with the poets and poems in our late summer issue, and it will be time well spent. The poems are stunning, and diverse, and the language is arresting and exhilarating. These poems will make you forget the syllabi that need to be written, and the messages piling up in your in-box. They will remind you why we come to poetry, how poetry quenches; how, as Paul Engle observed “. . . poetry is boned with ideas, nerved and blooded with emotions, all held together by the delicate, tough skin of words.” We’re excited about this issue. We’re excited about diode.

The journal is now in its 8th year, and looking forward we hope to expand and deepen its offerings. Re-vitalization is in the air at diode, and the energy has spilled over to Diode Editions, the print publication off-shoot of diode. Diode Editions has a new logo, a new website, and a new addition to its masthead: Law Alsobrook is now serving as Co-Editor and Art Director. Diode Editions also has a renewed commitment to adding to its small, but remarkable, catalog. Soon we’ll be launching a chapbook contest, and we’re planning on expanding to full-length collections soon. When you get a chance, please do check out the new site: http://www.diodeeditions.com 

But, enough promoting. For now, just sit back. Read. Enjoy.