As Asterales celebrates the beginning of its second year of publication with Issue Five, we’ve been reflecting on what the journal has gifted us over the course of its first year. Connection. Beauty. Purpose. Joy. And so many feelings! —to read a poem or an essay and be in kinship with it, to be wowed by its language, to commiserate with its message. To view a piece of art and sigh or gasp in wonder at what someone has made with their two hands. To take the time to read and discuss every piece that comes through the submission queue as we hope editors do with our own work. 

Issue Five is filled with what we love about making Asterales—poems with craft and heart and muscle, art that sings and stops us in our tracks. Writers and artists who, in being true to their own style and experience, are broadening our personal definitions of what a poem or piece of art can be.

One of Donna’s favorite Death Cab for Cutie songs is the album-opening “The New Year” from Transatlanticism. “So this is the new year,” it begins, “and I don’t feel any different.” This year, we do feel a little different. There’s pride swelling somewhere in the depths of our chests, not a boastful kind, but one that is happy to shine a light on people who continue to create in the chaos of the day to day.  At the end of that same song, there is a plaintive, repeated wish for there to be “no distance that could hold us back.” 

That is our wish for all of us this year—may there be no distance that can hold us back from the things and people we love.

Donna & Rachel