Meet The Editors
Meet the authors behind the cadralor. The cadralor was co-created by Lori Howe & Christopher Cadra
Lori Howe
Editor in Chief
Lori Howe is a co-creator of the new poetic form, the cadralor. She is also the author of Cloudshade: Poems of the High Plains (Sastrugi Press, 2015) and Voices at Twilight (Sastrugi Press, 2016). Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in such journals as The Meadow, Clerestory, Red Hook, and Pilgrimage. She is a poetry editor with Sastrugi Press, as well as a phenomenologist whose peer-reviewed research appears in The Journal of Poetry Therapy, Qualitative Inquiry, and others. She holds a Ph.D. in Literacy Education and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing/Poetry from the University of Wyoming, where she is an Assistant Professor in the Honors College. She is the Editor in Chief of Gleam: Journal of the Cadralor and of Clerestory: Poems of the Mountain West. She is currently at work on the cadralore collection, Ocean, Ocean.
Lori, on the Cadralor: When I encountered a brilliant poem by the poet, Christopher Cadra, I was taken aback by his five, short stanzas, apparently unconnected, that came together alchemically in the fifth stanza. I was so moved that I sent him a message, and the cadralor was born of this fortunate and unexpected connection. Christopher Cadra had something else in mind when he wrote the poem(s) I read, but the chemical reaction that produced the cadralor came directly from his brilliant work. I was fascinated and drawn in by the idea of five unrelated stanzas that could each stand alone as whole poems, sparked into a fullness of self by the fifth stanza to become a whole poem connected almost invisibly by a shining or gleaming thread that becomes apparently only after one has read the entire poem. The cadralor is a “love poem,” and by this we mean that the gleaming thread illuminated by the fifth stanza answers the compelling question: “for what do you yearn?” This poetic form entrances me; it feels like a second skin. It is a thrilling experience to write a cadralor, and the more risk the poet takes, the more unconnected the stanzas are, the more electrifying the resulting poem. Along with my fellow editors, I hope you will read our sample poems, explore the form itself, and try your hand at the cadralor. I’d love to read your work.
Christopher Cadra
Senior Editor
Christopher Cadra is a poet/writer. His poetry has appeared in The Cimarron Review and elsewhere. His criticism has appeared in Basalt and a journal he edited, The Literati Quarterly.
Chris, on the Cadralor: The cadralor came about, one could say, by accident, though perhaps it couldn’t have been any other way. Its five distinct stanzas/images come together with a sort of magic, alchemy, or the term I’ve used most: an invisible thread. There’s something, maybe, in the writing of each stanza/image, of being in the same mindset while summoning the distinct images, that must remain unconscious, unseen. It’s almost as if, in writing a cadralor, one must forget they’re writing one until they reach the fifth stanza, or even after they’ve written the fifth stanza. It can be as late as then when that invisible thread, unseen by others, will become visible to the poet, who, in seeing the thread, can pull it and tighten the whole poem and say with confidence they have, indeed, just written a cadralor.
Jessamyn Smyth
Senior Editor
Jessamyn Smyth’s poetry and prose have appeared in Crab Orchard Review, Taos Review, Red Rock Review, American Letters and Commentary, Nth Position, Life & Legends, Wingbeats: Exercises and Practices in Poetry, and many other journals and anthologies. Her books The Inugami Mochi (2016) and Gilgamesh/Wilderness (forthcoming) are from Saddle Road Press. She has received honorable mention in Best American Short Stories (2006), and is the recipient of fellowships, scholarships, and grants from the Robert Francis Foundation, Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, and others. Jessamyn was the founding Editor in Chief of Tupelo Quarterly, and Founder/Director of the Quest Writer’s Conference.
Jessamyn, on the Cadralor: I first encountered the cadralor when I read Lori Howe’s initial flood of them: there was something so viscerally alive in the movement of her work in the form that I was immediately captivated. I could see and feel, too, how they were flowing in a way that just washes away any blockage, so I was excited by the form’s possibility as a new tool for teaching as well as my own praxis. When I set my hand to the form, though, what happened was not at all what I was expecting: rather than praise poem, joy-flood, or beauty explosion, the form became a kind of possession and took me straight to the underworld. What it asked of me was a bloody engagement with the hardest of all love-forms: betrayal, death, and the long climb back to the world of the living. The cadralor has its way with us, possessing and exorcising as surely as opening and washing clean. Unpredictable, non-linear, unenjambed stanzas connected by a gleaming thread of a final yes: try your hand at the cadralor and see where it takes you. We can’t wait to read what you make.
Lauren Scharhag
Senior Editor
Lauren Scharhag is the author of fourteen books, including Requiem for a Robot Dog (Cajun Mutt Press) and Languages, First and Last (Cyberwit Press). Her work has appeared in over 150 literary venues around the world. She is the recipient of the Gerard Manley Hopkins Award, the Door is Ajar Award, and the Seamus Burns Creative Writing Prize for poetry, as well as a fellowship from Rockhurst University for fiction. Additionally, her work has received multiple Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize nominations. She lives in Kansas City, MO. To learn more about her work, visit: www.laurenscharhag.blogspot.com
Lauren, on the Cadralor: Like others, I first came across a cadralor Lori had posted in a Facebook group, and was immediately intrigued. I shied away from trying it myself because I’ve always been hopeless with poetic structures. Scott, who was familiar with my work, encouraged me to give it a go, and I’m so glad he did. The cadralor is more conceptual than structural. I write a lot of short, imagistic poems. The idea of finding a golden thread that can tie seemingly disparate moments together and arriving at a higher truth—wow. Just wow. I absolutely feel like this form can make poetry transcend. Lori told me early on that writing a cadralor is akin to possession and that is absolutely true. It leads you to a profound mental and spiritual place. The individual stanzas, written as short poems, won’t help you attain such insight on their own, but juxtaposing them together in the same space reveals fascinating patterns. I look forward to future revelations—both my own, and those of my fellow cadraloreans.
Jenner Shaffer
Senior Editor
Jenner Shaffer is a writer and artist from the Ozarks, former editor of Moon City Review, and a veteran of the 101st Airborne Division. His writing has won local awards and appeared in regional publications.
Jenner, on the cadralor: I’m grateful to Lori Howe and Christopher Cadra for the invention of this dynamic and functional form. Many thanks to Lori and the Gleam editors for their encouragements, insights, and helpful suggestions. The readings and discussions hosted by the journal have provided an inspiring forum; it is a wonderful community of authors to exchange ideas with. I’m honored to be able to support the efforts of fellow poets in writing cadralore. The possibilities of the form are endless, and I continually marvel how other authors tailor their expressions. For me, composing a cadralor involves intuitive process as a mode of approach to primal meaning-making. A symbiotic commingling might be said to respire as yield in the thread of the cadralor. The ordering and letting-go aspects inherent with the form allow for unforeseen results that may prove surprising to their author. The cadralor’s remarkable versatility is, I believe, one of its greatest strengths.
Ready to write your own cadralor?
About Us
Gleam is a journal wholly devoted to the new poetic form, the cadralor, created by Gleam’s founding co-editors, Lori Howe and Christopher Cadra. The cadralor consists of five short, unrelated, highly-visual stanzas.
Get In Touch
If you are interested in submitting your own cadralor poem or if you have questions, you can reach out to our Gleam email. We look forward to hearing from you!
Meet the Editors
The cadralor was co-created by:
• Lori Howe, Editor in Chief
• Christopher Cadra, Senior Editor
Gleam: Journal of the Cadralor 