Welcome to this special guest-edited issue, featuring poetry recommendations by Ai Jiang!
I met Ai through an online writing group several years ago. Watching her career soar has been such a treat. Ai’s dedication and focus is admirable. I’m grateful for her generosity, not only in editing this poetry issue, but also for her willingness to participate in Electric Sheep readings and other community events.
In addition to all that, Ai’s writing is simply gorgeous. I love her intriguing characters and unique settings. Nothing about her work is predictable so it’s always an adventure to dive into one of her stories.
Ai’s Natural Engines duology, including A Palace Near the Wind and A River From the Sky, are available now. I loved these novellas, and now I can’t wait for her next book, An Empire in the Clouds, which will be out with Titan Books in September. And don’t miss her poetry!
Huge thanks to Ai for taking time to curate this stellar list of poems!
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From Ai:
I Can’t Decide What to Feel About This Life
By Manuela Amiouny in Radon Journal * 18 lines
If a watched pot never boils / maybe a watched world never ends.
A gorgeous blend of bitter hopefulness and existential futility.
By g.a.costa in Radon Journal * 19 lines
We’ve fed billions. / We’ll feed billions more.
A raw unpacking of the glaring pitfalls and consequences of capitalism and corporation.
By IM Shulman in Strange Horizons * 475 words
You must not let them regather me. Not even the heap my bones have left behind. Pour my eyes into the river. My tongue, threaded through the trees.
Equal parts body horror and body liberation, reconciliation and self-discovery.
By Brishbhanu Baruah in Strange Horizons * 28 lines
The roses have never had to lean / on the aspirations of the succulents.
A wonderfully surreal portrait of Mother Earth and the Universe in which she resides
By AbdulBasit Oluwanishola in Haven Spec * 38 lines
Somewhere, a boy was seeking a cup of water. He was given an ocean.
The minisculeness of human existence in the face of disaster and fears for a future that might smother us in waves.
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Ai Jiang is a Chinese-Canadian writer, Ignyte, Bram Stoker, and Nebula Award winner, and Hugo, Astounding, Locus, Aurora, and BFSA Award finalist born in Changle, Fujian, currently residing in Markham, Ontario. Her work can be found in F&SF, The Dark, Clarkesworld, The Masters Review, among others. She is the author of A Palace Near the Wind, Linghun and I AM AI. Find her at www.aijiang.ca
Read Ai’s work:
Memories Are Only Valuable if They Can Be Lost in Clarkesworld
Shadows Below Seaway Trains in Apex
the bud of a dead dream in Uncanny Magazine
We Smoke Pollution in Star*Line
And find her on X @AiJiang_ and Instagram @ai.jian.g
Myna Chang 