It has been my honor and delight to gather poems from the first five years of Sheila-Na-Gig online into this anthology. The selected poems from the years 2016-2021 are by seasoned writers whose work most often graced the journal. These are poems that illustrate the journal's aesthetic: "excellent imagery and a strong sense of voice." True of the individual poems and even more strikingly so gathered into a collection.

Through these pages, the broad swath of relationships that bind us to family, to lovers, to childhood memories, to the natural world, and to our wounded society are enacted through distinctive imagery and voice. The reader is invited to delve into a profound truth: "the world is just as beautiful as it's hurt" ("Crivelli's Madonna and Child," George Franklin). Taken together, the work highlights the vital role of poetry to affirm our shared, keenly lived experiences as we come together at a common table to share the "delicate bread" signified in Seth Jani's beautiful poem, "Repast."

When I set out to pull these 107 poems together thematically, I found that they naturally fell into a seemingly preordained order, with a dovetailing of subject poem to poem, section to section. A true mark of the realized aesthetic this community of poets brings to the table lies in how the poets' singular styles blend so seamlessly into a unified voice. The pieces demonstrate how every shade of emotion hinges on a kind of delicacy: the core vulnerability that shapes our response to the world, and that connects us all.

I am grateful to Hayley Mitchell Haugen, Sheila-Na-Gig founder and editor, for entrusting me with this lyric treasure trove, and for her support throughout the process of creating the collection. It has been a joy to mine the first twenty volumes for the fine work contained in these pages, and to rediscover and savor the delicacies the poems offer, down to "the last sweet bite."

Barbara Sabol

Associate Editor, Sheila-Na-Gig online

About the Authors

Barbara Sabol is the author of the poetry collections Imagine a Town (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2020), which won the Sheila-Na-Gig Editions' Full-Length Poetry Manuscript Prize, and Solitary Spin (Main Street Rag Publishing, 2017), as well as two chapbooks, The Distance Between Blues (Finishing Line Press) and Original Ruse (Accents Publishing). Her poems have appeared most recently in The ComstockReview, San Pedro River Review, Literary Accents, and Voices de la Luna. Barbara's writing also focuses on Eastern forms, such as haiku, tanka and haibun. Poems have appeared in Modern Haiku, Acorn, Akitsu, Frogpond, Presence, Canadian Haiku Journal, and Never Ending Story, among others. Barbara's long- and short-form poems have appeared in numerous anthologies.Barbara's awards include an Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council, and the Mary Jean Irion Poetry Prize. Her work has been nominated for five Pushcart Prizes, and two Touchstone awards for her short-form Japanese poetry. Barbara received a B.A. degree in French and a M.S. degree in Communication Disorders from the University of Massachusetts. She also earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Spalding University. Barbara is a speech pathologist, working in a medical setting. She is also an educator, conducting writing workshops for community literary organizations. Barbara lives in Akron, OH with her husband and wonder dogs.

Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sheila-Na-Gig online, Hayley Mitchell Haugen holds a Ph.D. in 20th Century American Literature from Ohio University and an MFA in poetry from the University of Washington. She is currently Professor of English at Ohio University Southern, where she teaches courses in composition, American literature, and creative writing. Her poetry chapbook What the Grimm Girl Looks Forward To appears from Finishing Line Press (2016), and her full-length collection Light & Shadow, Shadow & Light is from Main Street Rag Publishing Company (2018). Her chapbook, The Blue Wife Poems was published by Kelsay books in 2022. Her poems have appeared in Rattle, Slant, Spillway, Chiron Review, and many other journals in print and online. Her critical work appears in various journals and in the anthologies The Body in Medical Culture; On the Literary Nonfiction of Nancy Mairs; Stephen King's Contemporary Classics: Reflections on the Modern Master of Horror; The Modern Stephen King Canon: Beyond Horror; The Many Lives of It: Essays on the Stephen King Horror Franchise; and The Disfigured Face in American Literature, Film, and Television.

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