In our call for submissions to Issue 12, we promised to showcase material this summer that addresses the climate crisis. My co-editor and I have no doubt that it’s the existential issue of our lifetimes, and the more ways we can express our thoughts and feelings about it, the better chance we have to grapple with its implications, re-examine our choices, and inspire sustainable course corrections.

A determinedly eclectic journal like KYSO Flash offers an irresistible forum for a diversity of creative voices like few others can. We’re grateful to include 15 works of art and literature in this issue related to our featured theme, in nearly every one of our favorite genres: poetry in several forms (including hybrids like haibun and tanka prose), flash and micro-fiction, painting, haiga and photo-poems, lyrical CNF, and even a film review (of Cowspiracy, truly an eye-opener). One of these topical works, “Earth Hymn” by Bianca Glinskas, receives our Editors’ Choice Award.

So here’s a hearty, Knock-Your-Socks-Off thank you! to our very own Friends of the Earth for sharing your poignant and powerful works with us. You’re all winners in our book.

To begin your tour of our Climate Crisis selections with the Editors’ Choice Award winner, please click on “Next Page” below.