A note from the guest-editors Jessy: You and I have collaborated on several kinds of writing projects, and we worked together on our high school literary magazine, but have we co-edited anything before? I don't think we have! Dan: I'm sure we haven't co-edited anything before. One of our main characteristics as collaborators is a shorthand of communicating so we can focus on what we want without worrying too much about how the other person feels. I think music has always been important to our friendship, so it made sense that we would arrive at a music-oriented theme for this issue. Jessy: I really wanted to do a whole issue just about musicals. I pictured a table of contents with names of 10 or 20 musicals and then multiple poems about, say, The Sound of Music or the Buffy the Vampire Slayer musical episode or Hamilton. But this did not come to pass. Dan: I would've liked that, but a call for submissions about musicals might've been too narrow. That could've scared some people away, whereas "music" might be broad enough to attract a variety of poems. Jessy: I was surprised at how many poems we received that were about music in general. I don’t think I have any thoughts myself about music in general, only thoughts about particular pieces of music, or concerts, or instruments, etcetera. Dan: I, too, tend to focus on particular songs or albums, and I get obsessed with musicians, too. I didn't feel particularly drawn to poems that addressed music as a concept. I was most interested in what I usually look for in poems: writers' risks with language and, more important, introductions of themes/imagery beyond what a piece of music or a musical era means to an individual listener. We might’ve experienced an era or song similarly, but how does the poet transform the experience into feelings I wouldn’t find on my own? Jessy Randall Dan Shapiro Acknowledgments Art: Diana Magallon, “k-doremifasol”; Nethery Wylie, “Practice” Web Design: George Simmers