This triumphant 25th issue is marked by generous representations from many Mudfish writers, such as Stephanie Dickinson, Doug Dorph, Tim Macaluso, Richard Fein, Paul Wuensche, Dell Lemmon, Tom Hunley, Angela Schmidt, Robert Clinton, Paul Schaeffer, Joyce (Chunyu) Wang and many others.

For the first time, we have a single artist whose work adorns these pages. Jack Pierson's nakedly gorgeous and varied art unifies all of Mudfish so that it reads like a single poem, a moment's thought.

Stacy Spencer, the winner of the 18th poetry prize judged by Vijay Seshadri and the two honorable mentions, Elisabeth Murawski and Ann Robinson set a standard of excellence from which there is no decline. From first to last the voices touch you with their intimate revelations.

You read one poem and think, 'yes, this is what poetry is,' and then you read the next, and think, 'no, this is what poetry is,' and you are right every time.

Ann Robinson writes: "What a beautiful book. Starting with the cover. The layout, the poems. All. I am so proud to be in it. I was especially taken by the last poem, haunting and beautiful, full of what we know and don't know, down to the bone."

The founding editor Jill Hoffman's first book of poems, Mink Coat, was published by Holt, Rinehart and Winston in 1973. Her first novel, Jilted, was published by Simon & Schuster in 1993. She founded Box Turtle Press in 1983 and has since published 44 books: 24 issues of Mudfish, starting with Mudfish 1984 and 20 issues of Mudfish Individual Poet Series. Kimono with Young Girl Sleeves is Mudfish Individual Poet Series #20. Before that, Box Turtle Press published her collection black diaries(poems) in 2000 and The Gates of Pearl (a book-length poem) in 2018. In 2023, a second novel, Stoned, was published (Mudfish Fiction Series 1). She is also a painter and has painted the covers for many of these books.

Hoffman has a BA from Bennington, a Master's degree from Columbia and a Ph.D. from Cornell. She received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1974 to 1975. She has taught at Columbia University, Brooklyn College, Bard, The University of North Carolina, The New School, and other institutions. Presently she teaches a Mudfish Writing Workshop on Zoom from her Tribeca, New York studio.