Wel­come to The Account magazine’s first annu­al Nation­al Poet­ry Month issue! 

First I want to thank my co-pilots on this adven­ture, Edi­tor-in-Chief Sean Cho A. and Assis­tant Poet­ry Edi­tor L.A. Johnson.

The gen­e­sis of this Nation­al Poet­ry Month issue is the real­i­ty that we receive way more excel­lent work than we can accept. Yes, online space is the­o­ret­i­cal­ly infi­nite, but there is a lim­it to the amount of admin­is­tra­tive and pro­duc­tion labor we can take on for each issue. (After all, some­one has to herd cats and do bat­tle with Word­Press.) There are always great poems we have to let go of, so to make a long sto­ry short: the NaPo­Mo issue is my bla­tant scheme to pub­lish more poet­ry. Sean and Liz enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly embraced hav­ing a project sprung on them dur­ing our off sea­son, for which I am eter­nal­ly grateful.

Curat­ing this issue has been a reminder that poet­ry is the art we make when faced with the impos­si­ble. If any­thing you read here strikes you, I hope you will reach out to the poet and give them a Hell Yeah. Even bet­ter if you feel like giv­ing them a Hell Yeah on your socials, because shar­ing is car­ing. The Account is always meant to be a place of con­nec­tion, a place to dwell and dis­cov­er. The com­mu­ni­ty we build togeth­er is everything.

Our pre­vi­ous issue marked The Account’s 10 year anniver­sary. Thanks so much for con­tin­u­ing to read, share with, and sup­port us. I am very excit­ed that the first issue of our next decade is this one.

Christi­na Stoddard

Poet­ry Editor

The Account: A Jour­nal of Poet­ry, Prose, and Thought