The Rialto Books Review vol.021 can be purchased via Biblish by copy and pasting this link into your browser. https://biblish.com/referrals/d1324ccd7a4a6c4120a608d8eb4c1539d5662df3 \--- # The Poetic Plant ## by Eleanor Monroe

Similar concepts of Eastern spiritualism are discoverable in another frame, that being the *representation* of nature by Wordsworth, a member of a longer tradition in English poetry. For me, and I think for most literary aesthetes, sufficiently profound literature indicates that the Eastern spiritual doctrine is merely another frame, one that can even seem inane in comparison to literature. Certain spiritual practices attempt to access directly the experience of the conjoined and singular nature of experience. Literature contains shades of the insight and the experience. 

This desire not to say goodbye to the world could be viewed as psychological fidelity. On a moment by moment basis, there is never a goodbye. To consider one’s goodbye is to introduce a ripple on the stillness of experience.

In my own work, I do not see plans as sentient, or dancing. Even when I go to the botanic gardens, they seem to me a substrates. Perception gradually reveals to me the insects that hum about them, suggesting those that creep about beyond the outward faces without such fanfare. Only then does the whole seem animate. They seem to me neither entirely exuberant, nor at all tragic.

# The Once and Future King ## by Adam Kozak

I cannot say more on this than that I am proud to publish Adam’s work, and I leave the poem to the reader’s enjoyment without further ado.

# The Lighthouse Part IV ## by Alexandra Ranieri

# The Laundress & the Acrobat Act I ## by Alexandra Ranieri and Russell Block

# The League of Berries and Laurels Ch V ## by Russell Block