Cover: Photo © J. G. Betts. Bluebells near Labrador Bay Devon
Lighten Up Online’s first issue for 2024 greets March with distant bluebells by the sea, sci-fi, sinister steps, squirrels, sushi, swingers, and sycamores. Further in the culinary vein there are air-fryers, kitchen stoves, chocolate and the side effects of food seen on TV, along with thoughts on darts, cricket and baseball, imaginary friends, Juliet caps, the Elgin marbles, feet, bar-haunting ghosts and much else besides. Poet spirits include Byron (who agreed with Philip Kitcher about Lord Elgin’s actions) Chesterton, Coleridge, De La Mare. Eliot, Frost, Housman, Lear, O. Nash and Shakespeare.
Ensconced in the four Intervals are Felicia Nimue Ackerman, Brian Allgar, Shamik Banerjee, Bruce Bennett, Jerome Betts, Pat D’Amico, Heather Dubrow, Martin Eayrs, Kelly Scott Franklin, Julia Griffin, Max Gutmann, Robin Helweg-Larsen, Carey Jobe, Oscar Kenshur, Steven Kent, Rob McClure, Bruce McGuffin, L. A. Mereoie, Don Nigroni, Aaron Nydegger, Chris O’ Carroll, Henry Stimpson, Michael Swan, Don Wheelock, Liza McAlister Williams and Russel Winick.
Flushed with the success of their five line exercises in biography in Competition 64 come Felicia Nimue Ackerman, Brian Allgar, Marshall Begel, L. A. Mereoie, Mike Mesterton-Gibbons, Steven Searcy, Gail White and John Wood.
A cordial welcome aboard for the first time is extended to Alexandra Baez, Shreya Datta, Martin Eayrs, Kelly Scott Franklin, Carey Jobe, Liz Kendall, Rob McClure, Aaron Nydegger, Mark F. Stone and Anthony Young.
Finally, with thanks to Pete D’Amico, Alexandra Baez and Jane Blanchard for the use of illustrations and apologies to those whose work has been held over till June, best seasonal wishes to all LUPO’s contributors and readers.
