"Things as they are are changed upon the blue guitar." - Wallace Stevens. Copyright reserved, Random House, Inc.




Unstrung Summer 2024 poetry magazine now available to download for free!

 It is with immense pride that we present the Summer 2024 Issue of Unstrung poetry magazine! To read Click here 


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Unstrung Summer 2023 poetry magazine now available to download for free!

 It is with immense pride that we present the Summer 2023 Issue of Unstrung poetry magazine! To read Click here

 

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Unstrung Summer 2022 poetry magazine now available to download for free!

 It is with immense pride that we present the Summer 2022 Issue of Unstrung poetry magazine! To read Click here

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Unstrung Summer 2021 poetry magazine now available to download for free!

 It is with immense pride that we present the Summer 2021 Issue of Unstrung poetry magazine! To read Click here

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Unstrung Summer 2020 poetry magazine now available to download for free!

 It is with immense pride that we present the Summer 2020 Issue of Unstrung poetry magazine! To read click  


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Unstrung Summer 2019 poetry magazine now available to download for free!

 It is with immense pride that we present the Summer 2019 Issue of Unstrung poetry magazine! To read click here

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The Blue Guitar magazine seeks poetry submissions for the Summer 2025 Issue of Unstrung, a magazine of, for and about poetry. Submissions will be accepted from June 1 through July 4, 2025. Poets must submit original work and must have a tie to Arizona. Simultaneous submissions will be accepted, but the poet must notify the magazine as soon as possible if the work is accepted elsewhere. It is free to submit, and multiple poems may be submitted. Submissions must be in the best shape possible and publication-ready. Please include your name and the best way to contact you on your e-mail submission. Please include in the e-mail subject line: Attn. Unstrung — Poetry submission, and send to Rebecca Dyer at rebeccadyer@theblueguitarmagazine.org. For more information, e-mail Rebecca at rebeccadyer@theblueguitarmagazine.org or visit www.theblueguitarmagazine.org.


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 Unstrung Summer 2018 poetry magazine now available to download for free!

 It is with immense pride that we present the Summer 2018 Issue of Unstrung poetry magazine! To read click here

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 Unstrung Summer 2017 poetry magazine now available to download for free!

 It is with immense pride that we present the Summer 2017 Issue of Unstrung poetry magazine! To read here

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Unstrung Summer 2016 poetry magazine now available to download for free!

 

It is with immense pride that we present the Summer 2016 Issue of Unstrung poetry magazine! To read click here



Editor's Note


Travel is a theme running through this issue — travel as inspiration, adventure, escape, romance … travel as a sense of place. Time is another theme — or the idea of being “atemporal” — separate from or unaffected by time. I can appreciate both ideas, having just come from a trip to Ireland. Our tour guide told us it’s a relatively young island, emerging from the last ice age just 10,000 years ago. I got to see firsthand how sheer cliffs, rugged coastlines and rolling green hills could be a source of strength and inspiration for Irish poets. And, just as it is in Ireland, Arizona’s own wild beauty is a source of strength and inspiration — its unforgiving deserts, forested mountains, high-plain meadows, soaring red cliffs. What’s more, what is untamed here has existed long before we could even define the notion of “time” and will exist long after. But for us poets, it begs the question about our sources of inspiration: Are the sparks greater than what they ignite in us?

 

Rebecca “Becca” Dyer Editor

 

Editorial Staff Editor: Rebecca Dyer Editor: Richard H. Dyer Jr.

 Publisher: Elena Thornton

Artwork for front and back covers: Marjory Boyer


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Unstrung Summer 2015 poetry magazine now available to download for free!

 

It is with immense pride that we present the Summer 2015 Issue of Unstrung poetry magazine! To read click here


Editor’s Note

Driving home late at night from work, I always look

for bats swooping down from the darkness to grab at

insects caught in the glow of streetlights. One recent

night, I watched as a bat glided down into the light to feast, then

effortlessly glide back up into the blackness as if swallowed whole.

Then and there, I knew I had to write down this moment — what

happened exactly as I had experienced it, sensed it and felt it. After

several attempts, I came up with “The night snapped shut around

the bat.” I’m still fashioning the rest of the poem, and I may yet

still change that line. But for me, poetry is the best and perhaps

only way to capture these intense moments of experience and

concentrate them in the most potent image possible. Over the years,

naysayers have purported to ring a death knell for poetry. I say, it’s

more alive than ever, with all of its diverse, wonderful voices, all

communicating our shared experience in this vast creation — what

it means to be human and what we attempt to fathom deciphering

the darkness.

Rebecca “Becca” Dyer

Editor

Editorial Staff

Editor: Rebecca Dyer

Editor: Richard H. Dyer Jr.

Publisher: Elena Thornton

Artwork for front cover: Marjory Boyer

 

 


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    Unstrung Summer 2014 poetry magazine now available to download for free!

 

It is with immense pride that we present the Summer 2014 Issue of Unstrung poetry magazine! To read click here  

 

The magazine of, for and about poetry, which is free to download from our website, features the work of 21 poets:

 

Paula Ashley * Ronald G. Auguste * Lollie Butler * Gari Crowley * Mary Theresa Dietz * Richard Fenton Sederstrom * Michael Gregory * Andrew R. Jones * Jennifer Jones * Tracy Keller * Eva Louis * Bridget Magee * Deborah Mayaan * Kaitlin Meadows * Nicole Nixen * Holly Parsons * Howard Russell * Esther Schnur-Berlot * Carol Sletten * Elisabeth F. Venetiou * Eva Willis

 

Editor’s Note

 

This issue offers an eclectic mix of poetry, reflecting among the featured poets and their work a wide range of life experiences, subject matter, themes and, equally
importantly, each poet’s unique style. That’s how it should be. To confine poetry, to attempt to constrict it or narrowly define it, would be its antithesis. Poetry is the right of all to follow the impulses of the heart, soul and mind.

 

Rebecca “Becca” Dyer
Editor



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We are proud and pleased to present to you the Summer 2013 issue of Unstrung, a magazine of, for and about poetry. Our gratitude to the talented Cover Artist - Marjory Boyer, Editor in Chief - Rebecca "Becca" Dyer and Production Editor - Richard Dyer. To read Click here  


 Editor’s Note
This issue offers a wide and diverse range of styles and life
perspectives as it should. Poetry must reflect every aspect
of existence. As poets, we must allow ourselves every tool
necessary to accompli
sh this. We must use what will give us the

most direct route from our hearts to our heads. Being a poet is a
solitary occupation. A part of us will always be standing off to one
side, observing, analyzing, sifting, taking notes. But we can’t turn
away without peril. Like light shining through the slats of a blind,

poetry brings us back from the abyss.
Rebecca “Becca” Dyer
Editor in chief


                    
  




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We are proud and pleased to present to you the Summer 2012 inaugural issue of Unstrung, a magazine of, for and about poetry. Click Here 

Editor's Note:
I have a vague recollection of writing my earliest poem as a
7-year-old in elementary school — it was a simple four-line stanza with each line rhyming. But the schoolmate who sat behind me, an inveterate copier, co-opted my lines. Frantic that I would be seen as the plagiarist and facing a deadline to turn it in, I quickly erased end words and subbed in new ones. Only now the poem didn’t rhyme (a first foray into free verse?) ... and I got a red mark — but fortunately
no lasting scars, just a discomfoting memory.
At that age, I was mostly writing little plays and mysteries. But by junior high, after reading a friend’s contest-winning poem, and then in high school, seeing my own poem published in the school literary journal (it wasn’t very good as I remember), something inside me took hold. I haven’t been able to shake it off since.
Unstrung, a magazine of, for and about poetry, has long been a dream of mine. As a showcase for the wonderful works of our contributing poets, Unstrung is intended to add to the ongoing poetic dialogue and to create a new conversation with our readers.
None of this would be possible without a talented staff —
Publisher Elena Thornton, Cover Artist Marjory Boyer and
Production Editor Richard Dyer. To them, and to the lovers of poetry everywhere — readers and writers — this inaugural issue is lovingly dedicated.
Welcome and enjoy!
Rebecca “Becca” Dyer Editor in chief

Editorial Staff Editor in chief: Rebecca Dyer
Publisher: Elena Thornton
Production Editor: Richard H. Dyer Jr.
Artwork for front cover: Marjory Boyer


A project of the nonprofit The Blue Guitar magazine and The Arizona Consortium for the Arts


 The Arizona Consortium for the Arts is a startup, nonprofit group dedicated to supporting and fostering artists and the arts in Arizona, including the literary, visual and performing arts. For more information about Unstrung magazine, The Blue Guitar magazine and The Arizona Consortium for the Arts, visit our websites: www.theblueguitarmagazine.org  and www.artizona.org  .