This is the human question that the pieces in this issue seek to address. They search out answers with courage and present them with open hands: hide, don’t love, do love, laugh, run, forget, remember, seek out the living, find the truth, fall for art, go into nature, keep going, keep going.
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Sweet is thrilled to present the winner and nine finalists from our inaugural poetry contest in this issue, alongside three gorgeous short essays and one fanmail. Our poetry editors went through hundreds of contest submissions and selected the ten finalist poems, from which the poet Chelsea Dingman selected the winner, “1943” by McKayla Conahan, and runner up, “Protection Rite for Most of the Girls” by Sarah Stockton.
In reading for this contest, and always in reading regular submissions for the magazine, we were overwhelmed and impressed by the diversity of poets, perspectives, and talent in front of us. We poets are, indeed, a healthy community, and Sweet is grateful to be part of that community.
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Which is to say: please keep writing. Which is to say: the dangerous world needs your writing. Which is to say: thank you for trusting us with your writing.
Keep going.
–Katie Riegel
Founding Editor & Poetry Editor