It seems hard to believe, but with this our 12^th issue, The High Window has come to the end of its third year.  Equally hard to take in is the fact that somehow or other since 2015 the High Window Press has published 16 collections of poetry, with plenty more in the pipeline for next year and beyond. Moreover, although the original project, as conceived by myself and Anthony Costello might have been considered pretty ambitious, the journal has, more recently, expanded its range with its many supplementary posts and features.

It would seem then that the time has come to take stock of where we are and where we might be heading. From 2019 this will be with me as sole editor, although I am bound to take the opportunity here of thanking Anthony for his enthusiastic and, at times, visionary input into getting this journal off the ground and for giving me the nudge that I needed to take the plunge in the first place. In particular, Anthony has been the instigator of The Featured American Poet and for two years produced a virtuoso series of ‘real time’ interviews via email. He also suggested that we have a regular essay slot, so it seems appropriate that in this issue we should include his essay on Coleridge, Byron and their personal physicians. Anthony also liked writing the editorials. In this issue we have included some poems from his recent PSR pamphlet inspired by the letters of Van Gogh.

So, as ever, the new issue is packed with good things. The poetry section is heaving with new poems by Matthew Sweeney, John Siddique, John Duffy, Richard Skinner, Pippa Little and many other less known but equally talented voices. There is a wide-ranging reviews section in which we explore excellent new collections by Gaia Holmes, Frank Dullaghan and Jo Balmer, a retrospective of the work of Geoffrey Grigson, the selected poems of Robert Desnos and an anthology of Palestinian poetry. We would like to thank, in particular, Jo Balmer for curating a fascinating set of translations, versions and re-imaginings of work inspired by the poetry of Ancient Greece and Rome.

Alongside the journal, we are also publishing this quarter two new books: Janky Tuk Tuks by Wendy Holborow and Cradle of Bones by Frances Sackett.

Finally, for the first time in three years we have closed submissions. However, this will only be a temporary expedient to allow us to deal with a considerable backlog. We will be open again for business before too long and would like to thank those of our contributors who have been having something of a wait before their work has been published. We have been particularly pleased by a long-overdue increase in the number of submissions from women poets. We do strive for balance but can, in the end, only publish what comes our way!

David Cooke