Jesse James, Billy the Kid, Butch Cassidy, Belle Star, Wyatt Earp, Bonnie and Clyde… Robin Hood, Aladdin, Zorro, Jean Valjean, the Joker, Villanelle… Malcolm Reynolds, Zoe Washburne, Peter Quill, Gamora, Han Solo, Sam and Dean Winchester… outlaws have a perennial hold on our imaginations, equal parts romanticized and demonized, revered and reviled, admired and loathed, depending on whose side you’re on. Outlaws are anti-heroes. They destabilize existing systems of power, erasing the illusion of control in societies. They bring with them and leave in their wake disorder, chaos, violence, destruction, loss, and death. But on the other hand, they also point to possibilities—of throwing off the shackles of propriety and authority; of living life on their own terms and according to their own ethical codes, standards, and values; of the possibilities that exist beyond established socio-political and cultural structures

 For this 54th issue of Eye to the Telescope, I asked poets to send me their verse outlaws and outlaws in verse, and they delivered beyond my wildest imaginings. I could have filled multiple issues of Eye to the Telescope with the embarrassment of riches which flooded my editor’s inbox

 I’m grateful to the 213 poets who offered me the honor of considering their work, and to Brian Garrison and F. J. Bergmann for their assistance on the managing side of this endeavor. Selected from hundreds of options, the eighteen poems included in this issue attest to the range and quality of submissions, and represent only a fraction of the incredible outlaw poetry out there. My editorial goal was to allow these representative poems to showcase the range of possibilities outlaws afford us—humor, romance, tragedy; yesteryear, today, the future; Earth, other planets, and interstitial spaces; outlaws we’ve all heard of and new outlaws springing from the imaginings of poets; and figures of every sort, from eco-outlaws to monsters, pickpockets to rebels to mercenaries, AI to rogue singer, time-travelers to space pirates, and witches to demons

 I hope you are as emotionally compelled, creatively stimulated, and intellectually challenged as I am by these poems.