Welcome to the fourth edition of our New Contexts anthology. Once again we have been able to harvest an eclectic selection of contemporary poetry and short prose from around the world. Authors in this collection are geographically spread across the United Kingdom and the United States of America, as well as Western Europe and Australasia. In curating these collections I am always struck how certain themes seem to emerge in each, as if the authors and poets have independently mined a contemporary theme or preoccupation. Yet whilst there may be some commonality of theme there is, as ever, a tremendous divergence of style and approach.