Publisher’s Note:

The original Rain Walk (2015), acrylic paint and dye on silk (24″ tall x 12″ wide), signed front and back by Yelena Sidorova is held in a private collection. Image appears in the haiga above with her permission. Additional images of the painting are available at UGallery.

Yelena Sidorova

holds an MFA degree in Oil Painting and Art History from the Khabarovsk Fine Art & Graphic University in the Russian Far East. In 1997, her family relocated to the United States. She and her husband, Stanislav Sidorov, who is also a visual artist, live in Colorado with their daughter and two cats.

In addition to oil on canvas, Yelena specializes in painting on natural China silk. As she explores a variety of subjects, including landscapes, street scenes, people, flowers, and still life, she seeks to make her style bright and decorative across all of them. Her paintings are exhibited in national and international art shows and are held in public and private collections worldwide.

Shared studio, Yelena and Stanislav: Sidorov Fine Art

Gallery on Instagram: lenasidorovfineart

Jonathan Yungkans

is a writer, photographer, and native of Los Angeles who holds an MFA degree in Poetry from California State University, Long Beach (2019). His poems have appeared in Anastamos; Book of Matches; The Ekphrastic Review; Gleam: Journal of the Cadralor; Gyroscope Review; Heron Tree; The Mackinaw; MacQueen’s Quinterly; NOON: journal of the short poem; Panoply; San Pedro Poetry Review; Silver Birch Press; Sonic Boom; Synkroniciti; Unbroken: journal of prose poetry; West Texas Literary Review; and other publications. His photographs have appeared in MacQueen’s Quinterly, Silver Birch Press, and Synkroniciti, among others.

Yungkans is the author of two full-length poetry collections: Borrowed from Heaven (MacQ Books, May 2026) and The Ravens Will Arrive Later (Gnashing Teeth Press, March 2026). His second poetry chapbook, Beneath a Glazed Shimmer (Tebot Bach, 2021), won the 2019 Clockwise Chapbook Prize.

During what some choose to call normal hours, Jon works as an in-home health-care provider, fueled by copious amounts of coffee, while finding time for the occasional deep breath.

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ And All Our Wasted Time Sinks into the Sea and Is Swallowed Up Without a Trace, ekphrastic prose poem by Jonathan Yungkans, after Symphony of Night by Leon Lundmark, in Issue 26 of MacQueen’s Quinterly, aka MacQ (January 2025)

⚡ A Quartet of Prose Poems: “Answering Neruda” by Yungkans in Issue 17 of MacQ (29 January 2023)

⚡ It Belongs to Each of Us Like a Blanket by Yungkans, Winner of “The Question of Questions” Ekphrastic Writing Challenge, in MacQ-15 (September 2022)