Brian Turner takes a turn as guest editor, and an emerging poet wins a big prize. You could say we're even more excited that usual about Guernica's poetry section.

As I read through the poems gathered for this issue, I found the pulse of the city insisting that it be heard—even in poems which leaned more toward a pastoral tradition. In the Paris of Pascale Petit’s “My Father’s City”—“The gargoyles’ cheeks flush / from the strain of breathing for you.” In “Smoke,” Michael Symmons Roberts asks, “What new edifice / hardens within, waits for the world to sharpen.” Dunya Mikhail takes us to “Hong Kong,” where the flowers are “everywhere: / on porcelain, / on bracelets, / on ashtrays, / on silken cravats, / on hems of coats, / on carpets, / on walls, / in meals, / in paintings, / in speeches...” Billy Ramsell’s “Distant Fears” recognizes that “The tide’s placid, insistent tongue is only wave / after wave of finance washing up on this green haven.” And, finally, Matthew Sweeney’s poem (“The Sleepwalker”) offers an intricate puzzle of consciousness and intent which begins with this opening gem of Carver-esque minimalism: “The sleepwalker shot himself / on the bridge over the freeway.”