Bramble Spring 2026 print issue is now available.

Editor’s Note

How does a poem shape? What can a poem do? What is the word for a group of poems? A magazine? An anthology? A chorus? A babble? A treasure hunt?

To question is close to the core of the human condition. We’re a curious and imaginative species and that is certainly on display in this spiky assemblage of voices. Questions seek answers. Maybe as you read through this issue, you’ll hear how “Ripe Now” offers a possible countermelody to “Scoogie.” “We Need Love Stories” holds an insistent answer in its very first line to “wild goose chase, a self-portrait.” “Abeyance” asks stark questions that will resonate for many of us and “Unspoken” is a (darkly) humorous follow-up. Many other connections and conversations in here await your discovery in this sometimes cacophonous variety of shapes, approaches and techniques that all equal “poem.”

My curation no doubt also reveals my own sense of humor and/or earnest intent, whether I know it or not. I like to think, reading this issue, we might find ourselves grounded not just in the human condition, but in the human condition now. These poets, separately and taken together, capture a specific moment, one we share.

I encourage you to keep an open page and a pen nearby as you read. Find the questions herein and write your own answers…or (even better) note down the questions that arise for you and turn them into…what? A poem, a letter, a reflective essay? And so the dialogue continues. Where will the conversation take us next?

Sarah Sadie
Spring 2026

Sarah Sadie believes community needs creativity and creativity needs community, and we all need new stories. She’s a poet, writer, and creative visionary who lives on a continental divide in a small town in Wisconsin. Winner of the Lorine Niedecker Prize, the Posner Prize and a Pushcart Prize, and recently nominated for a Sunshine Blogger Award, she grows tomatoes in buckets and teaches and facilitates workshops and classes with the aim of helping creatives find their new stories and next steps. Online, she can be found holding An Inviting Space on Substack. https://aninvitingspace.substack.com Globally, she is a member of the International Listening Association, the Transformative Language Arts Network, and locally she’s attending graduate school to become a counselor and take her wordwork in new directions.

Artist Bio

Laura Gilliam spent the first half of her life in California, and settled to raise a family in Madison, Wisconsin. She is a teacher, a musician, a gardener, an archaeologist, a cook, and an artist. She is entering the Renaissance of her life, and surrounds herself everyday with nature. She is @wisconsciously on Instagram.

Artist Statement

I started my ceramic practice in Madison, Wisconsin, over fifteen years ago. I learned from a wonderful assortment of ceramic artists at MSCR (Madison School and Community Recreation) and Midwest Clay Project and Studios. I am so grateful for such affordable and high-quality ceramic instruction. Having spent the first 12 years of my practice focused on wheel throwing, it’s only in the past two and half years that I’ve begun experimenting with hand-building ceramics. I’ve been inspired by nature, plants especially, but everything from rocks-and-lizards to orchids and microbes. I find working clay with my hands is therapeutic and as I learn this art, I’m intentionally choosing the different technique, the new medium, the unusual form, evolving my work as I practice.