in the mail today, my two contributor copies to Passager Journal, The Contest Issue, in which my poem, “DEAR LYUDMILA NAVALNAYA, PLEASE” is published. I’m so pleased to see it in print. I wrote this poem in February, while I was in Costa Rica, a short time after Alexei Navalny, a jailed Russian opposition activist, was brutally murdered in a Russian prison. Then, his body was held hostage by Putin––the prison refused to release his body to his mother for a public burial in Moscow. Lyudmila Navalnaya, stood up to prison officials for days, refusing to submit to their demand for a quiet, private funeral for her son. They brutally threatened her. She did not relent. She claimed the body of Alexei for his funeral in Moscow, attended by thousands. I was so moved and inspired by her courage in the face of such profound grief.