Editor's Note Spring 2026

Welcome to PAN-O-PLY’s Project Poetry Month! April is National Poetry Month. We reserve the Spring issue for an ekphrastic mash-up between local artists and poets.

We find art in many ways. I recall watching a brick layer build a sign monument. His movements were like a dance as he took a brick, covered it with mortar and skillfully placed the brick on the wall. Art and beauty surrounds us.

When we love what we do, the results glow.

We all have a poem that lives within us. The poem weaves in and out of our essence. The poem may tell the story of joy, sorrow, or love. The poem may reflect the birth of a child, the loss of a friend, or a first kiss.  The poem may not be apparent to us in words, it sings in our memories and in our core.

As writers and poets, we seek to bring moments into words. You may feel poems are somewhere out there, other and apart, unable to connect. I cannot build what a skilled tradesman builds, but I can appreciate his knowledge and ability. I can seek to understand and find joy.

We try to curate poems that you can connect to and find a synaptic feeling. We hope we are building something you can enjoy.

Thank you for reading PAN-O-PLY.  

Where shall we take instruction?

From the bright smile of the pony

tale girl teased out by jump rope?

Look to the shine in her sunlit eyes

eagerly telling the day’s theology.

The scrapped and bruised knees -

The boy climbing a branching sycamore tree.

Comes not knowing, asking why,

in him is everything.

Where shall we look for instruction?

The baby kicking with joy

at the sight of her mother?

The gentle arm of a brother comforting?

Listen to the sermon we are given!

A child’s hug asking no forgiveness,

deeply firm, telling you, you are best of all,

now and forever.

By Dan Breen