Sixfold Poetry Winter 2014

by Sixfold

  Rachel A. Girty is a student at Northwestern University studying vocal performance and creative writing. She has performed with The Lyric Opera of Chicago, The Northwestern University Opera Theatre, and The Castleton Festival. She works on the poetry staff of Helicon. Her poetry has appeared in Prompt magazine, and she was recently awarded the Jean Meyer Aloe Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets.

  Kendall Grant As a freshman in college, I realized that Gerard Manley Hopkins’ “Pied Beauty” captured more detail than I had discovered in life. His lines started my pilgrimage into nature and poetry. Professionally, I teach at a religiously affiliated university where the spiritual and academic collide sparking principle-based insight and action. The desired result is a life of disciplined service to God, country, and world.

  Savannah Grant is a recent graduate of Smith College, where she won prizes for fiction and poetry. She is always looking to write new poems and improve her work and hopes to someday make graphic novels. She lives with her dad and a small (very lucky) black cat.

  Stephanie L. Harper earned a BA in English and German from Grinnell College, and an MA in German literature from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She lives with her husband and two children in the Portland, OR, Metro area. Her work as a Writer and Home Schooling Parent has far-reaching extensions into social activism endeavors to promote a safe, just and vibrant world of possibility for future generations. https://www.slharperpoetry.wordpress.com/

  A native of Rochester, New York, Heather Erin Herbert lives in Atlanta with her children and husband, where they spend the summer trying to avoid bursting into flame. Currently working on her MA English at Valdosta State University, Heather works in a college writing center and likes to spend her few free seconds per semester reading, knitting, and consuming improbable amounts of coffee. She has no idea where she found time to write these poems.

  Rebecca Irene has finally accepted poetry as her tumultuous lover and taskmaster. Her poems speak to the simultaneous beauty and horror of this world, how every life is the same, every life is different and the ways our lives differ are not always fair or fathomable. She is a graduate of Swarthmore College.

  Meghan Kemp-Gee is a screenwriter, playwright, and award-winning poet. She lives and writes in Los Angeles, California.

  James Ph. Kotsybar’s poetry has been selected by NASA for launch into Martian orbit—the first literature to another world. His poetry appears in the mission log of the Hubble Telescope, and has won honors from the Society of Classical Poets, Odes To The Olympians, Ohio’s Ingenuity Center, and Balticon. Performances include The Los Angeles Performing Arts Center, Llhasa Club, Beyond Baroque Gallery, KCSB 91.9 FM, KDB 93.7 FM, and three cable television channels.

  For thirty-nine years, Michael Kramer has day-lighted as an English teacher. He has advised the award-winning high school literary magazine, King Author, and has had work nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Kramer has been married to Rebecca longer than he’s been teaching; together they have raised four remarkable children. He has work forthcoming in Pough Quarterly. Check out his collection of short stories in verse Hopeless Cases (Moon Tide Press, 2011) on Amazon.

  George Longenecker teaches writing and history at Vermont Technical College. Some of his recent poems and book reviews can be found in Atlanta Review, Penumbra Memoir and Rain Taxi. He lives on the edge of the forest in Middlesex, VT.

  Michael Hugh Lythgoe was one of three finalists selected for the 2012 poetry fellowship by the SC Academy of Authors. Mike retired as an Air Force officer and earned an MFA from Bennington College. He teaches for the Academy for Lifelong Learning at USC in Aiken where he lives with his wife of 50 years, Louise. His chapbook, Brass, won the Kinloch Rivers contest in 2006.

  George Mathon was born in Vermont and still lives at Joe’s Pond, though now he winters in Florida. He’s explored many of the natural wonders and native ruins in the United States. These places provide inspiration, time and location for many of his poems. He’s published three books of poetry: Entering The Forest, Chickadees, and Killers.

  Donna French McArdle’s poems have appeared in the anthology Lost Orchard: Prose and Poetry from the Kirkland College Community, and in Wilderness House Literary Review, Prairie Schooner, Antioch Review, and other journals. With a grant from the Massachusetts and Boxford Cultural Councils, she documented local farms and farm stands in Essex County Harvest 2003. She earned an MFA from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop and works as the writing coach for a public school.

  Jill Murphy is a writer living in Portland, Oregon.

  Debbra Palmer’s poems have appeared in BLOOM Magazine, Calyx Journal, Pectriloquy (CHEST Journal for the American College of chest physicians) and The Portland Review. She recently returned to her birth state of Idaho after spending most of her life in Portland, Oregon where she studied writing at Portland State University. Now home at last, she lives and works in Boise with her wife and their little dog, Tennessee.

  Nicholas Petrone’s poems can be found in many places, including The View From Here, Willows Wept Review, The Ranfurly Review, Poetry Superhighway, 3 Elements Review, Weird Cookies, Straight Forward Poetry, The Tower Journal, Vimfire Magazine and in many other damn fine publications. You can also read his poems at https://winkingattheapocalypse.blogspot.com/. He teaches American history in Syracuse, NY.

  Tracy Pitts is a writer / filmmaker living in Portland, OR.

  Danielle C. Robinson, a North Carolina native, is the author of A Slice of Purple Pie and the forthcoming poetry book Words I Should Have Said Before. She is a graduate from North Carolina Central University. She loves to dedicate her time to scientific research, writing, painting, African dancing, traveling, community service, and listening to music.

  Jamie Ross writes and paints on a mesa west of Taos, NM, spends much time in Mexico. His poetry has been published in numerous journals, as well as the anthology Best New Poets 2007. His 2010 collection, Vinland, received the Intro Poetry Prize from Four Way Books.

  Kimberly Sailor graduated from the USC Creative Writing program in Los Angeles and also holds a Master’s in Library and Information Studies from UW-Madison. She is the current Editor-in-Chief of the Recorded A Cappella Review Board (rarb.org), authoring over two hundred published music reviews. Her flash fiction has appeared in The Bookends Review, and her novel The Clarinet Whale is available on Amazon.

  Cassandra Sanborn earned her BA in Creative Writing from Purdue University. Though most of the writing she does now is for her job—she is the Grants Coordinator at a nonprofit in Indianapolis, Indiana—she continues to write poetry and fiction in her spare time.

  Matthew Scampoli writes in Pelham, NY.

  Harold Schumacher Originally a pastor, his career transitioned to stockbroker (he served “God and mammon”), realtor, townhome complex caretaker, high school and college instructor, newspaper columnist, pastor again, and retirement. Currently, a novel and poetry book are in progress. He lives on Rainy Lake near International Falls, Minnesota, and is a 20-plus-year veteran of the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally.

  A. Sgroi is a native New Yorker, a twin sister, a trapeze artist, an avid fan of Edna St. Vincent Millay, an occasional poet, and a Sixfold newcomer.

  Sharron Singleton My poems have appeared in Agni, Rattle, Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, among others. In 2009 I won the James River Writers Contest and was named the Poet of 2010 by the journal Passager. I also won 1st place prizes in 2010 and 2012 in the Poetry Society of Virginia annual contest, 1st place in the MacGuffin Poet Hunt contest in 2012 and 1st place in the Sixfold Contest in 2013. My chapbook, A Thin Thread of Water was published in 2010 by Finishing Line Press.

  Mariana Weisler is a professional actress and singer, performing both locally in her hometown of New York City and nationally. She graduated summa cum laude from Hunter College and Macaulay Honors College where she studied Opera, but now works in the more intimate venue of Musical Theatre. Mariana’s foremost passion, however, lies in creative writing, with her
first notable publication being in Sixfold. She is currently working on a collection of poetry and a novel.

  Franklin Zawacki writes in San Francisco, CA.