Abraxas Review positions itself as a venue for writing that resists the easy gestures of contemporary poetry—the performative confession, the ornamental obscurity—in favor of work that is both accessible and formally alert. The editors articulate a tripartite criterion: candor, intellectual substance, and a purposeful engagement with experimentation. This is not a call for the merely strange or the merely sincere; it is a call for poems that earn their risks through clarity of intent and emotional accuracy. The journal's stated interest in work that "cracks the egg" suggests a curatorial appetite for poems that disrupt expectation without abandoning the reader. The emphasis on inviting, everyday language alongside a tolerance for the weird and the fancy indicates a poetics of inclusion rather than exclusion—one that values the reader's experience as much as the writer's ingenuity. For poets, this represents a context in which vulnerability is not a weakness but a craft decision, and where humor is treated as a legitimate register of seriousness. Issue 4 will be shaped by these commitments. The $3 fee is a standard reading charge that supports the journal's operations; it is not a contest entry. There is no prize attached, only publication. Poets should understand that they are submitting to a editorial vision that prizes authenticity over performance and purpose over provocation, and that the work selected will be read by an audience the journal describes as "everyday"—a term that here signals respect rather than condescension.