Current Issue: Spring 2026

Editors' Note

As the world unfolds into crisis after crisis, we are making noise. This is how we survive through the unsteadiness we currently face. We write through it, we make art, we hold each other close. Writing has been a potent tool of activism and resistance throughout history; through our pens we rejoice, we mourn, we express ourselves. Now more than ever, it is crucial that we raise our voices in whatever way feels necessary to each of us. When you open this edition of Clamantis, you can hear a chorus of voices doing just that: crying out into the wilderness toward the future we are constructing.

Despite the chaos of the current world, it’s finally spring in the Upper Valley. Each year the winter is so deep that the spring feels unfathomable, but then the thaw comes and fills us with awe. Ferns unfurl beside the road in a remarkable and sacred awakening. Fawns test out new legs, frogs defrost from their winter slumber, and brooks gurgle back to life. The words within these pages are also coming alive, bright green as newly born leaves, stirring the soil and waking up. This edition echoes the season. It is bursting with birdsong, animals rustling through the forest, the endless noise of a busy mother’s life, internet chatter, urgent questions, and the silence of death.

My eternal gratitude goes to the harmonious cacophony of the Clamantis Board’s music. Thank you to Keehan White, whose organizational skills, steadiness, and radical care have held this journal together; Chelsee Niebergall, whose efficiency and intelligence have steadied us at each stage of the editorial process; and Andrew Moore, whose incredible passion and love of the written word are infused throughout the journal. Thank you also to Laura Cunningham, whose meticulous copyediting skills and brilliant ideas have become engines for the journal; Isdaly Reyes, whose graphic savviness and charisma have added heart to Clamantis; and to Mack Willingham, whose knowledge and technical expertise have been vital.

The Clamantis Board could not pull this off without the steady bassline of our band, Anna Minardi, whose perspective, humor, and sharp memory ground us. Thank you to our editors, who spent their spring breaks sifting tenderly through submissions, and to those who volunteered to work with authors on revisions. I would also like to thank our cover artist, Shanna McNair, for generously submitting what can only be described as our dream cover.

I am incredibly proud of the words and artistic works that buzz, spark, and scream within this edition. It has been an honor to edit the work of such talented writers and artists. Jonathan Champagne shows us that love is much closer than we think, Laura Cunningham explores pop culture through a neoliberal lens, and the powerful words of Isdaly Reyes illuminate two lovers on either side of the border wall between Mexico and the United States. We are entranced and amused by the rhyme schemes of Christian Martino, become fully invested in the story of a passionate musician in Benjamin Stanislav’s “Noise Gate,” tumble along the beach through the artwork of Ileana Knight, and we even get an exclusive look at the Orion Nebula through Ed Ting’s skillful lens. What a privilege it is to celebrate such vibrant art at a time when we so desperately need it.

Welcome to Noise Complaint, the Spring 2026 Edition of Clamantis. We hope you find yourself somewhere within.