Chunks of alphabet 
get lost on their way to words, 
but keep together, 

link arms as they circle, search 
for places, try to keep from 

falling out of the language. 

—After Carousel of Stories by Lorette C. Luzajic

Carousel of Stories (mixed-media, acrylic on canvas, 2023)

Copyrighted © by Lorette C. Luzajic. All rights reserved.
Image appears here with her permission.

Lorette C. Luzajic

is an award-winning mixed-media artist whose collage paintings have been shown in galleries and museums, on movie sets and textbook covers, in poetry and art books, and more. Her work has been collected at home in Canada, and in more than 30 countries around the world.

She is also a widely published writer whose prose poetry and flash fiction have appeared in several hundred literary journals in print and online. The founder and editor of The Ekphrastic Review, a journal devoted entirely to creative writing inspired by art, Lorette teaches ekphrastic writing, art appreciation, and mixed-media art in person and online.

Artist’s website: https://www.mixedupmedia.ca/

Gary S. Rosin

is a Contributing Editor of MacQueen’s Quinterly. His poetry and haiga have appeared, or are forthcoming, in various literary reviews and anthologies, including Chaos Dive Reunion (Mutabilis Press, 2023); contemporary haibun (Volume 17, Red Moon Press, 2022); Concho River Review, Sulphur River, Texas Poetry Calendar; The Ekphrastic Review; and Visions International.

Two of his ekphrastic poems appear in Silent Waters, photographs by George Digalakis (Athens, 2017). He is the author of two chapbooks, Standing Inside the Web (Bear House Publishing, 1990) and Fire and Shadows (Legal Studies Forum, 2008). His poems “Black Dogs” and “Viewing the Dead” were nominated for Pushcart Prizes.

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Out of the Haze, collaborative haiga with photograph by George Digalakis and poem by Gary S. Rosin in MacQueen’s Quinterly (Issue 8, June 2021); nominated for, and selected for publication in, Contemporary Haibun 17 (Red Moon Press, 2022)

⚡ Featured Poet: Gary S. Rosin in MacQueen’s Quinterly (Issue 7, March 2021)

⚡ Crossing Kansas in The Wild Word (7 February 2020); includes audio of Rosin reading his poem

⚡ Two Readings: “Apparition” and “Black Dogs” by Gary S. Rosin for Texas Poetry Calendar 2015 at the Blue Willow Bookshop in Houston, Texas (20 September 2014).

See also Black Dogs here in MacQ (Issue 12, March 2022), which was nominated in October 2022 by MacQ for the 48th annual Pushcart Prize (2024 edition).