Wel­come to the 2026 Nation­al Poet­ry Month issue of The Account: A Jour­nal of Poet­ry, Prose, and Thought.

Trans­for­ma­tion is a through-line in this issue. From the cher­ry blos­soms in Tay­lor Franson-Thiel’s “Car­di­nalis Twice” to the mus­tangs in Ruth Williams’s “Wild/Tame,” many of the poems you’ll read here involve change, evo­lu­tion, nature, or meta­mor­pho­sis. There are poems about sur­veil­lance cap­i­tal­ism, sum­mer camp, moth­ers, midlife aging, love, leg­ends, and let­ting go.

In their accounts, sev­er­al of the poets talk about com­ing back to writ­ing after a time away from it. Late­ly I’ve been writ­ing hard­ly at all, though my hus­band and I have got­ten into watch­ing DIY YouTube videos put out by a com­mu­ni­ty of peo­ple who sim­ply call them­selves “mak­ers.” They do wood­work­ing, 3D print­ing, crafts, and eccen­tric engi­neer­ing projects. One of our favorite chan­nels is a cheer­ful­ly bonkers man named Col­in Furze who is dig­ging a steel rein­forced tun­nel under his house and garden—because why not have a trap door in your pantry that leads to a secret pas­sage­way? It’s fun.

That is my wish for every­one read­ing this note. I hope you have fun cre­at­ing some­thing this spring, whether it’s a poem or a batch of blue­ber­ry muffins or an explod­ing bub­ble launch­er. (See Emi­ly the Engi­neer for that last one.) I hope you’re able to stay in touch—or get back in touch—with what you enjoy about writ­ing and mak­ing. I’m try­ing to do the same.

This issue is also the last one for our Assis­tant Poet­ry Edi­tor L.A. John­son. We’re deeply grate­ful to Liz for all of her work over the past three years and for being such an excel­lent edi­tor and col­lab­o­ra­tor. We wish her every suc­cess as she launch­es two books: one she edit­ed and one she wrote. Swirl & Vor­tex: Col­lect­ed Poems by Lar­ry Levis is out now, and Liz’s first full length col­lec­tion, Lost Music, is com­ing in 2027 from Milk­weed Editions.

Thank you all for being here and for join­ing our com­mu­ni­ty. Let’s embrace, as Megan Pin­to writes, “these long days of light.” I hope you enjoy the issue.

Christi­na Stoddard

Poet­ry Editor