by James Crews
Linda Hogan is the author of several poetry collections, including Dark. Sweet.: New & Selected Poems (Coffee House Press, 2014); Rounding the Human Corners (2008); The Book of Medicines (1993), which received the Colorado Book Award; and Seeing Through the Sun (University of Massachusetts Press, 1985). She is writer in residence for the Chickasaw Nation and was inducted into the Chickasaw Hall of Fame. She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation, and won the Henry David Thoreau Prize for Nature Writing, a Lannan Literary Award, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas. She lives in Colorado.
Kathryn Hunt makes her home on the coast of the Salish Sea. Her poems have appeared in The SUN, Rattle, Radar, Orion, Missouri Review, Frontier Poetry, and Narrative. Her first collection of poems is Long Way Through Ruin (Blue Begonia Press). She’s the recipient of residencies and awards from Ucross, Artists Trust, and Joya AIR (Spain). Her documentary film No Place Like Home premiered at the Venice Film Festival. Hunt is working on a memoir, Why I Grieve I Do Not Know. She’s worked as a waitress, ship scaler, short-order cook, bookseller, printer, food bank coordinator, filmmaker, and freelance writer. kathrynhunt.net
Rob Hunter’s collection of poems is September Swim (Spoon River Poetry Press). His poems have appeared in Poet Lore, The Oddville Press, The Timberline Review, Sleet, Wild Violet, Straight Forward Poetry, The Blueline Anthology, Foliate Oak, Rat’s Ass Review, Gray Sparrow Review, Sheila-Na-Gig online, and others. He teaches at Burr and Burton Academy in Manchester, Vermont.
Mary Elder Jacobsen’s poetry has appeared in The Greensboro Review, Four Way Review, Green Mountains Review, storySouth, One, and Poetry Daily and in anthologies, including Healing the Divide: Poems of Kindness and Connection. Born in Washington, D.C., Jacobsen now lives in Vermont. Winner of the Lyric Memorial Prize and recipient of a Vermont Studio Center residency, she is coorganizer of Words Out Loud, an annual reading series of Vermont authors held at a still-unplugged 1823 meetinghouse.
Jacqueline Jules is the author of three chapbooks, including Itzhak Perlman’s Broken String, winner of the 2016 Helen Kay Chapbook Prize from Evening Street Press. Her poetry has appeared in publications including The Paterson Literary Review, Potomac Review, and Imitation Fruit. She is the author of a poetry collection for young readers, Tag Your Dreams: Poems of Play and Persistence (Albert Whitman, 2020). She lives in Arlington, Virginia. metaphoricaltruths.blogspot.com
Garret Keizer is the author of The World Pushes Back, which won the 2018 X. J. Kennedy Poetry Prize, as well as eight books of prose, including Getting Schooled (2014), Privacy (2012), and The Unwanted Sound of Everything We Want (2010). He is a contributing editor at Harper’s and Virginia Quarterly Review and a 2006 Guggenheim fellow. His poems have been published in AGNI, The Antioch Review, Best American Poetry, Harvard Review, The Hudson Review, Ploughshares, Raritan, and The New Yorker, among others. He was born in Paterson, New Jersey, and lives in Vermont with his wife and daughter.
Susan Kelly-DeWitt is a former Wallace Stegner Fellow and the author of Gravitational Tug (Main Street Rag, 2020), Spider Season (Cold River Press, 2016), The Fortunate Islands (Marick Press, 2008), and nine other collections. She has been a reviewer for Library Journal, editor in chief of the online journal Perihelion, the program director of the Sacramento Poetry Center and the Women’s Wisdom Arts Program, a Poet in the Schools, a Poet in the Prisons, a blogger for Coal Hill Review, and an instructor at UC Davis. She is a member of the National Book Critics Circle and the Northern California Book Reviewers Association, and a contributing editor for Poetry Flash. She is also an exhibiting visual artist. susankelly-dewitt.com
Jane Kenyon (1947–1995) was an American poet and translator. Kenyon met the poet Donald Hall at the University of Michigan; they married in 1972 and moved to Eagle Pond Farm, Hall’s ancestral home in New Hampshire. Kenyon was the poet laureate of New Hampshire when she died in April 1995 from leukemia. At the time of her death, she was working on the now-classic Otherwise: New and Selected Poems, which was released posthumously in 1996.
Lynne Knight is the author of six poetry collections and six chapbooks. Her work has appeared in journals, including Poetry and Southern Review. Her awards and honors include publication in Best American Poetry, a Prix de l’Alliance Française, a PSA Lucille Medwick Memorial Award, a Rattle Poetry Prize, and a National Endowment for the Arts grant. I Know (Je sais), her translation with the author Ito Naga of his Je sais, appeared in 2013. She lives on Vancouver Island.
Ted Kooser, a former US poet laureate and winner of the Pulitzer Prize, has recently retired from teaching poetry in the creative writing program at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln and is now mowing grass and trying to start a weed whacker. His most recent book of poems is Red Stilts (Copper Canyon Press, 2020).
Danusha Laméris is the author of The Moons of August (Autumn House, 2014), which was chosen by Naomi Shihab Nye as winner of the Autumn House Press poetry prize. Her poems have been published in Best American Poetry, The New York Times, American Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, The SUN, Tin House, Gettysburg Review, and Ploughshares. Her second book is Bonfire Opera (University of Pittsburgh Press) and she is the 2020 recipient of the Lucille Clifton Legacy Award. She is poet laureate of Santa Cruz County, California.
Heather Lanier is the author of two poetry chapbooks and the memoir Raising a Rare Girl (Penguin Press, 2020). Her essays and poems have appeared in The Atlantic, The SUN, Brevity, Salon, The Southern Review, Threepenny Review, and elsewhere. She is assistant professor of creative writing at Rowan University, and her TED talk, “Good and Bad Are Incomplete Stories We Tell Ourselves,” has been viewed more than two million times.
Dorianne Laux is the author of several collections of poetry, including What We Carry (1994); Smoke (2000); Facts about the Moon (2005), chosen by the poet Ai as winner of the Oregon Book Award; The Book of Men (2011), which was awarded the Paterson Prize; and Only As the Day Is Long: New and Selected Poems (2018). She has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts and has been a Pushcart Prize winner. She lives with her husband, poet Joseph Millar, in North Carolina.
Li-Young Lee was born in Djakarta in 1957 to Chinese political exiles. Lee’s parents came from powerful Chinese families; Lee’s great grandfather was the first president of the Republic of China and Lee’s father served as personal physician to Mao Zedong. Lee is the author of The Undressing (W. W. Norton, 2018); Behind My Eyes (2008); Book of My Nights (BOA Editions, 2001), which won the 2002 William Carlos Williams Award; The City in Which I Love You (1990), the 1990 Lamont Poetry Selection; and Rose (1986), winner of the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Poetry Award. He lives in Chicago with his wife and sons.
Paula Gordon Lepp grew up in a tiny rural community in the Mississippi Delta. A childhood spent roaming woods and fields infuses her poems with imagery from the natural world. As an adult, her lifelong love of poetry has renewed itself, proving the axiom that it’s never too late to do what you love. She now lives with her husband and two children in Charleston, West Virginia, where she is working on a collection of poetry. This is her first published work.
Annie Lighthart is a poet and teacher who started writing poetry after her first visit to an Oregon old-growth forest. She is the author of Pax (Salmon Poetry, 2020), Iron String, and Lantern. Her poems have been featured on The Writer’s Almanac and in anthologies, including Poetry of Presence: An Anthology of Mindfulness Poems and Healing the Divide. Her poems have also been turned into choral music, used in healing projects in Ireland, England, and New Zealand, and have traveled farther than she has.
Alison Luterman’s four books of poetry are The Largest Possible Life; See How We Almost Fly; Desire Zoo; and In a Time of Great Fires (Catamaran Press, 2021). Her poems and stories have appeared in The SUN, Rattle, Salon, Prairie Schooner, Nimrod, The Atlanta Review, Tattoo Highway, and elsewhere. She has written an ebook of person
al essays, Feral City; half a dozen plays; and a song cycle, We Are Not Afraid of the Dark; as well as two musicals, The Chain and The Shyest Witch.
Freya Manfred, a longtime Midwesterner who has lived on both coasts, is the author of two memoirs: Frederick Manfred: A Daughter Remembers and Raising Twins: A True-Life Adventure. Her nine books of poetry include My Only Home; Swimming with a Hundred-Year-Old Snapping Turtle; Loon in Late November Water; and Speak, Mother. Her poems have appeared in more than 50 anthologies. Her work celebrates the vital lifeline of nature, our fragile mortality, humor, and the passionate arc of long-term relationships. freyamanfredwriter.com
Joan Mazza worked as a microbiologist, a psychotherapist, and, before retiring, taught workshops nationally with a focus on understanding dreams and nightmares. She is the author of six books, including Dreaming Your Real Self (Penguin/Putnam), and her poetry has appeared in Rattle, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, Poet Lore, The MacGuffin, and The Nation. She lives in rural central Virginia, where she writes a daily poem. JoanMazza.com
Mary McCue is the author of the chapbook Raising the Blinds (Finishing Line Press, 2013). Her poems have appeared in Southern Review of Poetry, Midwest Poetry Review, Streetlight Magazine, River Oak Review, and her essays have been published in Tampa Review, Albemarle Magazine, Chesapeake Bay, and Common Boundary. A former violinist, she lives on eight acres in Albemarle County, Virginia, where deer roam and birds are safe and revered.
Michael Kiesow Moore is the author of the poetry collections What to Pray For and The Song Castle (Nodin Press). His work has appeared in Poetry City and Water~Stone Review; the anthologies Lovejets: Queer Male Poets on 200 Years of Walt Whitman; Among the Leaves: Queer Male Poets on the Midwestern Experience; and A Loving Testimony: Losing Loved Ones Lost to AIDS; and on The Writer’s Almanac. He founded the Birchbark Books reading series. When he isn’t drinking too much coffee, he can be found in Saint Paul, Minnesota, dancing with the Ramsey’s Braggarts Morris Men.
Julie Murphy lives in Santa Cruz, California, surrounded by redwood, pine, and live oak trees. She belongs to the Community of Writers in Squaw Valley, teaches poetry at Salinas Valley State Prison, and is a founding board member of the Right to Write Press. A member of the Hive Poetry Collective, she hosts the Hive radio broadcast on KSQD. Her poems have appeared in Massachusetts Review, CALYX, Common Ground Review, Red Wheelbarrow, Louisville Review, and The Alembic, among others. She believes there is little better in life than being laid low by a good poem.
Mark Nepo is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Book of Awakening. He has published 22 books and recorded 14 audio projects. Recent work includes The Book of Soul (St. Martin’s, 2020) and Drinking from the River of Light (Sounds True, 2019), a Nautilus Award winner. marknepo.com and threeintentions.com
Gail Newman was born to survivors of the Polish Holocaust in a displaced persons’ camp in Lansberg, Germany. She is the author of Blood Memory, chosen by Marge Piercy for the Marsh Hawk Press 2020 Poetry Prize, and One World (Moon Tide Press). She has worked as a teacher for CalPoets and as a museum educator at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco. Her poems have appeared in CALYX, Canary, Nimrod, Prairie Schooner, and Spillway; in the anthologies The Doll Collection and Ghosts of the Holocaust; and in America, We Call Your Name. She is the cofounder of Room, A Women’s Literary Journal and has edited two children’s poetry collections: C is for California and Dear Earth.
Heather Newman’s work has appeared in Barrow Street, Inquisitive Eater, Matter, New Verse News, Two Hawks Quarterly, The Potomac, and the anthology Voices from Here. She is a member of the South Mountain Poets and teaches at The Writers Circle in New Jersey.
Naomi Shihab Nye calls herself a “wandering poet.” She has spent 40 years traveling the world to lead writing workshops and inspire students of all ages. Nye was born to a Palestinian father and an American mother and grew up in Saint Louis, Jerusalem, and San Antonio. Her books of poetry include 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East; A Maze Me: Poems for Girls; Red Suitcase; Words Under the Words; Fuel; You & Yours (a bestsellerin 2006); and The Tiny Journalist (BOA Editions, 2019).
January Gill O’Neil is author of Rewilding (2018), Misery Islands (2014), and Underlife (CavanKerry Press, 2009). She is assistant professor of English at Salem State University, and is on the board of trustees for the Association of Writers and Writing Programs and Montserrat College of Art. She served as executive director of the Massachusetts Poetry Festival from 2012 to 2018. A Cave Canem fellow, her work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, American Poetry Review, New England Review, Ploughshares, Ecotone, and the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day series, among others. She was awarded a Massachusetts Cultural Council grant in 2018, and was named the John and Renée Grisham Writer in Residence for 2019–2020 at the University of Mississippi, Oxford. She lives with her two children in Beverly, Massachusetts.
Christen Pagett is most at home in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, where she is an educator hoping to inspire teens with her love of language and all the worlds it can open. She currently spends her days pursuing an MFA in poetry at Eastern Oregon University, practicing piano, and trying new recipes on her family.
Brad Peacock is a veteran, longtime organic farmer, and former United States Senate candidate from Shaftsbury, Vermont, whose passion is to bring people closer to one another and the natural world.
Andrea Potos is the author of the poetry collections Mothershell (Kelsay Books), A Stone to Carry Home (Salmon Poetry), Arrows of Light (Iris Press), and Marrow of Summer (Kelsay Books/Aldrich Press). Her poems can be found online and in print, most recently in Spirituality & Health, Poetry East, Cave Wall, and The SUN. She received the James Hearst Poetry Prize from the North American Review and the William Stafford Prize from Rosebud Magazine, and several Outstanding Achievement Awards in Poetry from the Wisconsin Library Association. Travelling, art, cafes, and family are her greatest sources of inspiration. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin.
Laura Ann Reed grew up in the hills of Berkeley, California. She holds master’s degrees in performing arts, psychology, and career counseling. She has worked as a dancer and dance instructor in the San Francisco Bay Area, and she created and worked in the role of Leadership Development Trainer for scientists and directors at the San Francisco headquarters of the US Environmental Protection Agency. She now lives with her husband in Washington State.
Jack Ridl is poet laureate of Douglas, Michigan, and the author of Saint Peter and the Goldfinch (Wayne State University Press); Practicing to Walk Like a Heron, winner of the National Gold Medal for poetry by ForeWord Reviews/Indie Fab; Broken Symmetry, the 2006 Society of Midland Authors best book of poetry; and Losing Season (CavanKerry Press), named best sports book of 2009 by the Institute for International Sport. The students at Hope College named him their Outstanding Professor and Favorite Professor, and the Carnegie Foundation (CASE) named him Michigan professor of the year in 1996. ridl.com
Alberto Ríos was named Arizona’s first poet laureate in 2013. He is the author of many poetry collections, including A Small Story About the Sky (Copper Canyon, 2015), The Dangerous Shirt (2009), The Theater of Night (2006), and The Smallest Muscle in the Human Body (2002), which was nominated for the National Book Award.
David Romtvedt is a writer and musician from Buffalo, Wyoming. His books include No Way: An American Tao Te Ching, Dilemmas of the Angels, Some Church, Zelestina Urza in Outer Space, and The Tree of Gernika. A Flower Whose Name I Do Not Know was a selection of the National Poetry Series. A recipient of the Pushcart Prize and fellowships from the Wyoming Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts, Romtvedt is an avid bicyclist. With the band Ospa, he performs traditional and contemporary Basque dance music.
Katie Rubinstein is director of Seven Sisters Community Birth Center, where she has the privilege of serving women and families as a doula and apprentice midwife, and former associate director of A Network for Grateful Living. Fascinated b
y the many intersections of ecology, health, culture, and social change, she lives in Massachusetts with her husband, three sons, and ever-goofy canine companion, Rainer.
Marjorie Saiser’s seventh collection, Learning to Swim (Stephen F. Austin Press, 2019), contains both poetry and memoir. Her novel-in-poems, Losing the Ring in the River (University of New Mexico Press) won the WILLA Award for Poetry in 2014. Saiser’s poems have been published in Rattle, Poetry East, Nimrod, Fourth River, Alaska Quarterly Review, Poet Lore, Briar Cliff Review, Chattahoochee Review, and American Life in Poetry. poetmarge.com
Tracy K. Smith is author of the memoir Ordinary Light and four books of poetry: Wade in the Water (2018); Life on Mars, which received the 2012 Pulitzer Prize; Duende, recipient of the 2006 James Laughlin Award; and The Body’s Question, which won the 2002 Cave Canem Poetry Prize. She served as the 22nd US poet laureate, 2017–2019. Smith hosts the popular podcast The Slowdown.
Nathan Spoon is an autistic poet whose poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Harvard Divinity Bulletin, Mantis, Oxford Poetry, Poetry, Reflections (Yale Divinity School), The Scores, South Carolina Review, Western Humanities Review, and the anthology What Have You Lost?. His debut collection, Doomsday Bunker, and a chapbook, My Name Is Gretchen Merryweather, were both published in 2017. He is editor of Queerly, has been a Tennessee Williams Scholar at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and has presented papers on poetry and neurodiversity at the University of Pennsylvania and the Association of Literary Scholars, Critics, and Writers conference.
Kim Stafford is the founding director of the Northwest Writing Institute at Lewis & Clark College. He is the author of a dozen books of poetry and prose, including Singer Come from Afar; The Muses Among Us: Eloquent Listening and Other Pleasures of the Writer’s Craft; A Thousand Friends of Rain: New & Selected Poems; 100 Tricks Every Boy Can Do: How My Brother Disappeared; Wind on the Waves: Stories from the Oregon Coast; Having Everything Right: Essays of Place; and Wild Honey, Tough Salt. He was poet laureate of Oregon, 2018–2020. He teaches and travels to raise the human spirit.