Opening the online Vita Poetica Journal Summer 2026 are these lines from Co-Editor Caroline Langston: “For six years, every edition of Vita Poetica has bitten off and tasted the range of human perspective and experience, the deep terroir and diversity of truths. We’ve generally struck a tone that is both genial and hopeful. Not this time. The most striking top notes you’ll encounter in this issue are grim ones. There’s plenty of judgment, death, and graves.”
Contributing to this issue with poetry are Matthew E. Henry, Jeannine Marie Pitas, Sean Cho A., Stephen Haven, Aaron Brown, Hilary Sallick, Richard Chess, En Lin Koh, Christina Ellison, Frank Paino, Sharlee Mullins Glenn, Barry Casey, and Isabel Chenot; fiction by Louis Bourgeois; nonfiction by Alison Lock, Visual Arts, Leah Oates, Rajni Louise, and Sara Black.
Readers will also enjoy the interview “Divining the Past” with poet Chinua Ezenwa-Ohaeto in conversation with Christopher Honey, reviews, and “Contemplative Practices” offering two essays: “The Spiritual Practice of Birding” by Ragan Sutterfield and “Creating a Time Map” by Aizaiah G. Yong.
Cover Art: Leah Oates. Transitory Space 4008 #6B, 2026. Truro, Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
