I am excited excited excited because I am about to actually go on vacation! Woohoo! Seven days in Jamaican sun on Jamaican beaches with delicious Jamaican food. In Jamaica. I can already feel the stress melting into the sand. The only real drawback is that going to Jamaica means I don’t get to see my girls, Lilly and Hannah. One hug from each of them is all I need for Christmas. Life is like that, though, giving you two things you need and telling you to pick. This holiday season, give out plenty of hugs. Hug all of the people you love, and hug them like you love them. Maybe those hugs will resonate through the world so strongly that I’ll feel my Hannah and Lilly hugs, and they’ll feel mine. If I could bend time and space, I’d be about to get the best hugs in the world from my girls…in Jamaica! Or maybe I just need lots of money to buy a private jet to ferry my favorite people to me. But this goes out to my girls: I love you and I miss you. Hugs.

I’m honored to be able to share with you an interview and truly stunning poetry by Gianmarc Manzione. You may have seen Gianmarc’s work last month in our Nonfiction Column. In addition to poetry, Mr. Manzione writes completely engaging pieces in which he tells the stories of the legends of bowling. He shared one of these stories with me in our interview, and he told me what draws him to write about these legends. We also talked about time and memory, Dante and St. Augustine, and, briefly, Neil Young. Gianmarc is a brilliant thinker and writer with a deft hand. His poems give me chills over and over – and he is as charming as he is talented. If you love charm and brilliance, you’ll love Gianmarc’s poetry and interview. This one is not to be missed.

Associate Editor J.P. Reese brings us four stunning poems from poet Laura Long. Ms Reese writes:

Laura Long is a poet whose work encompasses nature and human nature, the verdant, the empathetic, and the arid that contains within it those "stumpy stones of grief." Her poetry moves the reader with its ability to create the universality required of all fine poetry while it also invites us to embrace a seemingly personal grief such as that roiling the surface of her poem "Crash Anniversary #27," with its very specific subject matter.  In "Miss Hoover's Conch Shell," Long's deft development of both story and imagery moves out into the world using subtle undertones that recount the implications of a hurt and regret that can echo through a lifetime.  All four of these poems have a presence that speaks to readers with a mastery of language and a vivid immediacy. I am pleased to present these poems to our readers this month, and I hope you find much pleasure in exploring them.

Hobie Anthony shares three prose poems with us this month. The settings and imagery are what first drew me to the poems, how the content of each poem is on the edge of something, as if it is about to fall or crash. But I think that the real setting may be the staccato rhythm of the poems. It keeps me a little on edge while I read them, making everything sound very matter-of-fact in a world that is anything but straightforward.

Associate Editor Doug Van Gundy brings us two poems by Christina Seymour. Christina’s poems have brilliant moments where the setting and tone have captured me and the narrator’s thoughts surprise me in a way my own thoughts might. What a gift. Ms Seymour is an up-and-comer to keep your eyes on!

Miriam Sagan shares four beautiful poems with us this month. Her poetry gently dips into many different wells – present narrative, myth, history, metaphor, and geography. Ms Sagan then pours the waters together, and we readers get to see them blend and become one. I love her images – the sun strolling around the horizon; a hat and cape knitted from hair; the soul flying into the body. These poems gave me a sense of calm but challenge me, too.

Enjoy your holidays and your hugs. Enjoy your vacations and your home. Let your stress melt into the sand. I’ll be back next year with more poetry. And for now, come on in; the water is fine.