“Introspection”, by Camilla Skye

I saw all the poets on earth choke on their words.

            Just like scorpions are devoured by their offspring.

A stampede of iambic pentameters battered sonnets,

the only truce was vengeance, the only rancor oblivion.

            A Dadaist knelt to offer his complete works to the sun.

Literary critics wrung their hands over a poorly structured metaphor,

            as though aesthetics could save lives.

A captain, as the ship was sinking, lowered his rank and named

            a mediocre poet admiral of all his rhymes.

I woke up in my house.

            Snow threatened to keep falling until the day of my death.

David Cruz

David Cruz is a Costa Rican poet and editor based in the United States. He earned an MFA in bilingual creative writing from the University of Texas at El Paso and is currently a PhD candidate in Hispanic studies at the University of Washington. Cruz is the author of numerous poetry collections, including Cine Fractal (New Aleph, 2023); Lazarus (Mantis Editores, 2022); A ella le gusta llorar mientras escucha The Beatles [She likes to cry while listening to the Beatles] (Valparaíso Ediciones, 2016); and Trasatlántico (Editorial Costa Rica, 2015). Cruz has been the recipient of several awards, including the 2011 Luis Cardoza y Aragón Mesoamerican Poetry Prize. He was also a finalist for the Montreal International Poetry Prize in 2020. 

Anthony Geist

Anthony L. Geist is a professor of Spanish and Comparative Literature at the University of Washington, having taught previously at Princeton, the University of Texas in San Antonio and Dartmouth College. He has published widely on Spanish and Latin American poetry, with an emphasis on the Generation of 27, the avant-garde and surrealism. He has also worked in visual studies, curating art exhibits and co-directing a documentary film on the Lincoln Brigade. His translation of the Peruvian poet Lucho Hernández was a finalist for the PEN Prize in 2016. He was knighted in the Order of Isabella the Catholic Queen with the rank of Cruz de Oficial.

Camilla Skye

Camilla (b. 1990, Denmark) is a Danish painter and photographer whose work focuses on visceral interpretations of the natural world through representational painting, drawing, and analog photography. Her imagery draws from both observation and memory, exploring the emotional resonance of landscapes and organic forms, and blending mood and place into expressive visual narratives.

Her work has been exhibited internationally, including presentations with Delphian Gallery, London, as part of Papier III (2025), and in Works on Paper 7 at Blue Shop Galleries, London (2025). Earlier exhibitions include the Grand Opening Exhibition at Kinship Studio in Bali (2019) and Maj Ferniseringsfest at Visual Attack Gallery in Copenhagen (2016). Her practice and artistic process have been featured in various publications, most recently in The Flying Fruit Bowl (2024), where she discussed the intersections of nature, intuition, and materiality within her work.

https://www.camillaskye.com