Elegy, our summer poetry collection.

ELEGY (n) - a poem of serious reflection, typically a lament for the dead.

The Utrecht Pigeon is a home for the authentic voices of young people, celebrating the original and unrefined, the creative sapling and work-in-progress. Our community origins in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn continue to propel our vision that art and literature should be accessible and true to self.

Today I am thinking of The Utrecht Pigeon as a cultural archaeology, or a continuous archive of our story: a tale of lunchroom drafts and the period six bell, one whose timeless resonance calls me to compile our latest collection of poetry.

We embrace, crave drops of genuine feeling in an increasingly desensitized world. Continuing in our tradition, we've published poetry that asks questions, remains, apologizes. Unabashed and unflinching. Words that speak what is yet to be written, betraying our inner truths with their delicate creations.

The poems in this volume capture the narrow space between grief and acceptance, lingering on the moments where we are still mourning, near-exhausted, but are just beginning to see the emergence of light. We experiment with grief: is it residue to be shaken, or an afterglow to embrace? This space manifested in these poems as vacancies, mirrors, and time; unfurling from these meditations were beautiful reflections which I hope you will find as much meaning from as I did.

Michael O’Hare