Summer 2026
Summer 2026
Loon and rippling water at the forefront of Autumn Wright’s cover art invite you into Relief 2026. David J.S. Pickering’s “silence = death” grapples with living in the midst of repeated cycles of injustice. Mika Seifert’s “Bardo” brings us to the threshold that is a pilot’s uncanny island. Elizabeth Bolton’s “Burn It All Down: Notes from an Art History Major” begins with a single flower’s survival from destruction and the wish to understand why. Whether through joyful observation of beauty and connection, unresolved reflection on life’s tangible uncertainties, or determination to simply live life each day, the 2026 issue of Relief asks, in many voices, how we might best carry on.
Poetry
Eileen Berry
The Ache of Faith
Seán Carlson
Seven white sepals
Jenevieve Carlyn
In the Hush
S. D. Carpenter
In Autumn
Jonathan Chan
burial repose
Sarah Crowley Chestnut
Hound of Heaven
Richard Cole
Satan to the Artist
Craig Constantine
Fairytale of Salzburg
Erin Edinger
born again
John Ellis
A Theophany before the Passing of the Old Order of Things
Jenna K Funkhouser
Great Week While the Nations Rage
Charity Gingerich Notes on Angels
Kevin Grauke
Inspired by Vaughan Williams, Inspired Himself by George Meredith
Luke Harvey
De-fencing
Nathaniel Q Hoover Anadromous
Maria L. Hurlow Asking the Stones
Douglas Jones
Hiding Hyperbole Liturgical Mirror
Renee Kalagayan
Ritual
Sally Rosen Kindred
October Incision Psalm Prayer/Precarious
Dan Leach
Retainer
Marilyn MacArthur
Is Not Prayer—
Maureen McQuerry
Brassica nigra Chickens in Croatia
Judith H. Montgomery
And Yet
Daye Phillippo
Open Door
Red Bird
David J.S. Pickering
Senior Cohort silence = death
John Poch
Cockroach Psalm
Christianna Soumakis
hitchhiking
house of prayer
Sarah Southern
Sunday Morning
Emma Galloway Stephens
Born Just in Time for the End of the World
Jack Stewart
After Eden
Richard Stimac
Nunc Dimittis Vilomah
Patrick Trombly
The Saw
Paul Willis Muck Raker
Creative Nonfiction
Elizabeth Bolton
Burn It All Down: Notes from an Art History Major
Patricia Nagy Gyuris
Dogs
J.M.C. Kane
Holy Exhaustion: The Liturgy of the Saturday in Ethel Cain and Weyes Blood
Sarah Kimmet
Towards Indivisibility: A Meditation
Sharon White
Fifteen Kingfishers
Fiction
Paul Michael Garrison
Jarren Houtzman’s Pink Socks
Zachary Kosma
The King and the Woodsman
Mark Paalman
Liminal Memories
Mika Seifert Bardo