The Emergence Issue is intended as an expansive conversation on what it means to be a new and emerging poet today, and with that discussion we hope to provide a resource of encouragement — we all have to start somewhere. This issue features interviews with established poets Sheniz Janmohamed, Tasha Spillett, Jennifer Still, Daniel Scott Tysdal, and Chimwemwe Undi, in which they discuss their own experiences as emerging writers as well as the work they continue to do with new writers. All five interviews are followed by a curated selection of fresh writing from new and emerging poets with whom these mentors have worked. In this issue you will also find a selection of new writing from participants of the BIPOC Poetry Workshops in Winnipeg, as well as the winners of our 2019 2-Day Poem Contest and the winners of the Lina Chartrand Poetry Award for 2017 and 2018.

If anyone reading this issue is on the cusp of emergence themselves, perhaps they can take inspiration from the wise words of Tasha Spillett, who writes in this issue, “The world needs what you’ve been gifted to share. Move with intention and courage. Your words are medicine.”