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Issue 48 • April 2023
Fungi
edited by Avra Margariti

Introduction to Issue 48 • Fungi

Although fungi have been an obsession of mine since I was young, I couldn’t have foreseen the beautiful/grotesque variety of ideas and imagery the poets of Eye to the Telescope 48 would introduce me to.

Together we traveled through mycelial networks made of god-stuff, and along billboard-littered highways; we launched spaceward, then fell down Wonderland rabbit-holes, running through the fairy-ring haunts of the Wild Hunt. We sank through the loam of loss and illness, the substrata of death and devouring. And through decay, we found ourselves reborn, rendered bright and brand-new. Pixies played under our sprawling mushroom caps, lovers fell for our fruiting bodies, hyphae nourished us, and filaments spanned connections from forest to firmament.

The twenty poems found in this issue explore the relationship between self and nature, language, community, and embodiment.

I am so incredibly grateful and awed I got to experience the whole sporing spectrum of possibility borne of these poems. I hope readers do, too.

—Avra Margariti