J.S. Absher has published two full-length books of poetry, Skating Rough Ground (Kelsay Press, 2022) and Mouth Work (St. Andrews University Press), winner of the 2015 Lena Shull Award from the North Carolina Poetry Society. Absher’s poems have won prizes from BYU Studies Quarterly and Dialogue and have recently been published or accepted by The McNeese Review, Triggerfish Critical Review, and Tar River Review. He lives in Raleigh, NC, with his wife, Patti. (www.jsabsherpoetry.com/)
M. Anne Alexander came to writing as an outcome of counselling and flourished as an active member of the award-winning Enfield Poets and Stanza Groups. She generally explores places with personal, historical and contemporary significance. Her background is as a lecturer in English and teacher of Music. Her poetry is now widely published, including in two anthologies and a pamphlet, Wildflowers, (Poetry Space, 2021). She is also author of fiction and non-fiction and of Thomas Hardy: the “dream-country” of his fiction – a study of the creative process (Vision Press/Barnes & Noble). www.poeticvoices.live /portfolio/alexander-anne.
Thomas Allbaugh’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Modern Poetry Quarterly Review, Amethyst Review, Whale Road Review, Two Hawks Quarterly, and a number of other venues. His chapbook of poems, The View from January, was published in 2020 by Kelsay Books. He has also published a collection of short stories and a novel.
Edward Alport is a retired teacher and proud Essex Boy. He occupies his time as a poet, gardener and writer for children. He has had poetry, stories and articles published in a variety of webzines and magazines and BBC Radio. He sometimes posts snarky micropoems on Twitter as @cross_mouse.
Jane Angué lives in the foothills of the Cévennes and teaches English Language and Literature. She contributes in French and English to print and online journals such as Amethyst Review, Erbacce, morphrog, The High Window, Traversées and Arpa. A pamphlet, des fleurs pour Bach, was published in 2019 (Editions Encres Vives). A collection of poems, Fruit, leaf and flesh, was published in 2023 by Erbacce Press.
In aid of the restoration of the reredos
Paul Attwell lives in Richmond, London and is recovering from doing a Masters in Creative Writing with the OU. Paul loves to read and is a fan of Startrek. He spends time as servant to his cat, Pudsey.
Thea Ayres is a poet from West Yorkshire, and a graduate of The Writing Squad. Her work has been commissioned by the Dead [Women] Poets Society. It has been published in The Scribe, Strix, Ink Sweat and Tears, The North and Poetry Wales. She was highly commended in the Frosted Fire First Pamphlet Competition 2023.
Deborah Bacharach is the author of two full length poetry collections Shake & Tremor (Grayson Books, 2021) and After I Stop Lying (Cherry Grove Collections, 2015). Her poems, book reviews and essays have been published in journals nationally and internationally including Poetry Ireland Review, New Letters, Poet Lore and The Writer’s Chronicle among many others, and she has received a Pushcart prize honorable mention. She is currently a poetry reader for The American Journal of Nursing, SWWIM, and Whale Road Review and a writing instructor, editor, and tutor in Seattle. Find out more about her at DeborahBacharach.com.
John Janelle Backman (she/her) writes about gender identity, ancient spirituality, the everyday strangeness of karma, and whatever else comes to mind. Janelle’s work has appeared in Catapult, the tiny journal, Typehouse Literary Magazine, Tiferet Journal, and Amethyst Review, among other places. Her essays have made the shortlist of the Eunice Williams Nonfiction Prize and Wild Atlantic Writing Awards. She can be found on the web at www.backmanwriter.com.
Deborah Bailey has been writing poetry since she was a teenager. She recently retired after 40 years in social services and 30 years as a master’s level social worker. She has finally mustered courage to begin submitting recent work for publication, hoping others will enjoy her imagery.
Iljas Baker is a retired university professor born in Scotland and living in Thailand. His debut collection Peace Be Upon Us was published earlier this year by Lote Tree Press, Cambridge UK. He has been published in a number of anthologies, the latest being Kaleidoscope of Stories: Muslim Voices in Contemporary Poetry and has been published in various journals in Asia, the USA and Europe.
Alka Balain was born in India. Her writings have appeared/forthcoming in Usawa Literary Review, DREICH, The Green Journal, Poetry India, Visual Verse, Setu Bilingual, The Hooghly Review, AlSphere, Shot Glass, Amethyst, The Tiger Moth Review and elsewhere. Alka’s poems have been shortlisted for the Glass House Poetry Award 2024, Poetry Festival Singapore-Catharsis 2023, Wordweavers Contest 2022, and Wordsmith Award 2021. She is the author of Parijat Petals, of longing and seeking (May 2024, Hawakal Publishers).
David Banach is a philosopher and poet in New Hampshire, where he tends chickens, keeps bees, and watches the sky. He likes to think about Dostoevsky, Levinas, and Simone Weil and is fascinated by the way form emerges in nature and the way the human heart responds to it. You can read some of his most recent poetry in Isele Magazine, Neologism Poetry Journal, Passionfruit Review, Terse, and Amphibian Lit. He also does the Poetrycast podcast for Passengers Journal.
Shamik Banerjee is a poet from India. He resides in Assam with his parents. His poems have appeared in The Society of Classical Poets, Fevers of the Mind, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Westward Quarterly, Dreich, The Hypertexts, among others, and some of his poems are forthcoming in Willow Review and Ekstasis, to name a few.
When I Have Penned my Final Thoughts
Sam Barbee has a new poetry collection, Apertures of Voluptuous Force (2022, Redhawk Publishing). He has three previous collections, including That Rain We Needed (2016, Press 53), a nominee for the Roanoke-Chowan Award as one of North Carolina’s best poetry collections of 2016. Also, Uncommon Book of Prayer (2021, Main Street Rag) which chronicles family travels in England. His poems have appeared recently in Poetry South, Salvation South, Dead Mule School of Literature, and Streetlight Magazine, also upcoming in Cave Wall, among others; plus on-line journals Ekphrastic Review, American Diversity Report, Grand Little Things, and Medusa’s Kitchen.
Brian Baumgart (he/him) is the author of the poetry collection Rules for Loving Right (Sweet, 2017), and his poetry has appeared in a number of journals, including South Dakota Review, Spillway, Whale Road Review, and has been nominated for both the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net awards. Brian is an English professor and previously served as the Director of Creative Writing at North Hennepin Community College. He was 2018 Artist-in-Residence at University of Minnesota’s Cedar Creek Ecological Science Reserve and co-coordinated the Minnesota State Write Like Us Program. He is the father of two teenagers. For more: https://briandbaumgart.wixsite.com/website.
Kimberly Beck: Kim is a quiet, listening soul, who lives in Washington State. She can often be found at a local therapy ranch, caring for a very special herd of Norwegian Fjord Horses. She believes that horses are some of the best teachers when it comes to listening and writing poetry.
Will Begley teaches, writes, and raises children in North Carolina. His poems and translations have appeared in journals including Dappled Things and The Road Not Taken.
Deborah A. Bennett is an American poet who was long-listed for The Haiku Foundation’s Touchstone Award for 2022. Her work is spiritual in nature and inspired by her life-long affinity for solitary walks in the woods.
The Substance of Things Not Seen
Carole Bernstein is the author of poetry collections Buried Alive: A To-Do List and Familiar (both Hanging Loose Press) and And Stepped Away From the Circle (Sow’s Ear Press). Her poems have been published in journals such as Antioch Review, Apiary, Bridges, Chelsea, Hanging Loose, Paterson Literary Review, Poetry, Shenandoah, and Yale Review, and in anthologies including American Poetry: The Next Generation, Moms on Poetry, The Weight of Motherhood, Poetry Ink, and Unsettling America. Work is forthcoming in Keystone: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania (Penn State University Press).
Maya Bernstein’s writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Adanna Literary Journal, Allium, By the Seawall, the Cider Press Review, the Eunoia Review, Lilith Magazine, Poetica Magazine, Rue Scribe, Tablet Magazine, and elsewhere. She is on faculty at Georgetown University’s Institute for Transformational Leadership and Yeshivat Maharat, and is pursuing an MFA in poetry from Sarah Lawrence College. Her first collection is There Is No Place Without You (Ben Yehuda Press, 2022). She serves on the board of Yetzirah: A Hearth for Jewish Poetry.
Jayanta Bhaumik is from Kolkata, India, from the field of esoteric studies and counselling. His past works can be found in Poetry Superhighway, Juked, Madswirl, Vita Brevis Press, Blue Lake Review, Pif magazine, Acropolis Journal, Streetcake Magazine, and elsewhere. He is available @BhaumikJayanta
Bruce Black is editorial director of The Jewish Writing Project. His poetry and personal essays have appeared in numerous publications, including Write-Haus, Soul-Lit, The BeZine, Bearings, Super Poetry Highway, Poetica, Lehrhaus, Atherton Review, Elephant Journal, Tiferet, Hevria, Jewthink, The Jewish Literary Journal, The Reform Jewish Quarterly, Mindbodygreen, and Chicken Soup for the Soul. He lives in Highland Park, IL.
Jane Blanchard lives and writes in Georgia (USA). Her poetry has recently appeared in Lighten Up Online, Molecule, and Panorama. Her latest collection is Metes and Bounds (Kelsay Books, 2023).
Ariana D. Den Bleyker is a Pittsburgh native currently residing in New York’s Hudson Valley where she is a wife and mother of two. When she’s not writing, she’s spending time with her family and every once in a while sleeps. She is the author of four collections and twenty-one chapbooks, among others. She is founder and publisher of ELJ Editions, Ltd., a 501(c)3 literary nonprofit. She hopes you’ll fall in love with her words.
I Cried Out to My God in an Empty Sanctuary
Wayne Bornholdt is a retired bookseller who specialized in academic works in religious studies and theology. He holds degrees in philosophy and theology. He lives with his wife and three dogs in West Michigan where he works on his tennis game and writing.
Don Brandis lives quietly outside Seattle writing poems. He has a degree in philosophy and a long fascination with Zen. Some of his poems have been published by Black Moon Magazine, Amethyst Review, Blue Unicorn, Leaping Clear, and others. A book of his poems is out – Paper Birds (Unsolicited Press, 2021).
Susan Brice lives in Derbyshire with her husband, Richard and her canine companion Sunny. Walking the dog and observing the work of the Creator seem to go hand in hand, Seeing nature in all its many moods and colours has inspired her to write a collection of contemplative poems entitled Brushstrokes of the Ultimate Artist (2024), available from Amazon.
Susan’s poem ‘Canvas’ and her essay, ‘No Great Busyness’ have both appeared on Amethyst Review. Her poem ‘Pause’ was included in All Shall Be Well: New Poems for Julian of Norwich. She produced a collection of short stories in 2015, Returning Back and other short stories (Amazon). In 2022 Susan collaborated with fellow poets, Viv Longley and Jane Keenan to publish the poetry anthology Daughters of Thyme (dotipress.com). Viv, Jane & Susan met through the Open University Masters Degree in Creative Writing and are currently working on a second poetry anthology, Home Thyme, which will be available in October 2024.
Lisa Bristow’s poetry has been published in the Thomas Merton Journal, We are Not Shadows by Folkways Press, What the Eye Sees by Arachne Press, Kosmeo Mag and Faith, Hope and Fiction. She lives on the edge of the Peak District in England with her husband and rescue dog.
Beth Brooke is a retired teacher who lives in Dorset. She has three published pamphlets and one of those, Transformations, has been nominated for the PEN Heaney Prize. She has been published in a number of print anthologies and journals and several online journals including Amethyst. The most exciting thing about her is her beautiful grandson.
Walking Madonna
Aaron Brown is the author most recently of the poetry collection Call Me Exile (Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2022) and memoir Less Than What You Once Were (Unsolicited Press, 2022). His debut poetry collection, Acacia Road, won the 2016 Gerald Cable Book Award and was published by Silverfish Review Press. Brown grew up in Chad and now lives in Texas, where he is an associate professor of English and directs the writing center at LeTourneau University. He holds an MFA from the University of Maryland.
Dr. Kellie Brown is a violinist, conductor, music educator, and award-winning writer of the book The Sound of Hope: Music as Solace, Resistance and Salvation during the Holocaust and World War II. Her words have appeared in Galway Review, Earth & Altar, Ekstasis, Psaltery & Lyre, Still, The Primer, Writerly, and others. More information about her and her writing can be found at www.kelliedbrown.com.
Jeff Burt lives in Santa Cruz Country, California. He has a digital chapbook available, Little Popple River , from Red Wolf Editions, and print chapbook from A Filament Drawn so Thin from Red Bird Chapbooks. He has previously contributed to Amethyst Review.
Vikki C. is a British-born, award-nominated writer, poet and musician whose work explores the intersections of ecology, myth, existentialism and the human condition. She is the author of the chapbook The Art of Glass Houses (Alien Buddha Press, 2022) and the full collection Where Sands Run Finest (DarkWinter Press, 2024). Vikki’s poetry and fiction are internationally published/forthcoming in Stone Circle Review, EcoTheo Review, Psaltery & Lyre, ONE ART Poetry, The Inflectionist Review, Ballast Journal, Dust Poetry Magazine, Ice Floe Press, Black Bough Poetry, DarkWinter Lit, Acropolis Journal, The Belfast Review, The Winged Moon, Sontag Mag, Boats Against The Current, Nightingale & Sparrow, Origami Poems, Jerry Jazz Musician, Lazuli Literary Group and various other venues.
Kathleen Calby lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains and hosts writer events for the North Carolina Writers Network. Her work appears in San Pedro River Review, New Plains Review and The Orchards Poetry Journal. Named a 2022 Rash Award Poetry Finalist, Kathleen published Flirting with Owls (Kelsay Books) in 2023. Her Sufi background and other mystical associations contributed to a recent full-length manuscript she is completing about ancient and contemporary Egypt and the Pharaonic Era landmarks she was privileged to experience. Back home, Kathleen enjoys fried chicken and biscuits a bit too much and long, strenuous walks not enough.
Medinat Habu, outside Luxor, Egypt
Dia Calhoun is the author of seven young adult novels, including two verse novels, After the River the Sun and Eva of the Farm(Atheneum, 2013, 2012). She has won the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award; published poems and essays in The Writer’s Chronicle; EcoTheo Review; The Nashville Review; MORIA Literary Magazine; Grist Journal; And Blue Will Rise Over Yellow: An International Poetry Anthology for Ukraine, and others. She co-founded readergirlz, recipient of The National Book Foundation Innovations in Reading Prize, and taught Creative Writing at Seattle University and Stony Brook University. More at diacalhoun.com.
The Passing of Sacred Geometry
Dennis Camire is a writing instructor at Central Maine Community College. His poems have appeared in Poetry East, Spoon River Review, The Mid-American Review and other journals and anthologies. An Intro Journal Award Winner and Pushcart Prize nominee, his most recent book is an Anthology of Awe and Wonder, Deerbrook Editions. Of Franco-American origin, he lives in an A-frame in West Paris, Maine.
Dan Campion‘s poems have appeared previously in Amethyst Review and in Light, Poetry, Rolling Stone, and many other journals. He is the author of Peter De Vries and Surrealism (Bucknell University Press) and coeditor of Walt Whitman: The Measure of His Song (Holy Cow! Press). A selection of his poems was issued by the Ice Cube Press in July 2022: https://icecubepress.com/2021/10/01/a-playbill-for-sunset/
Dorothy Cantwell has worked as an educator, actress, and playwright, Her work has been published in the Long Island Literary Journal, Brownstone Poets Anthology, Constellate Literary Journal, Flash Boulevard, Assisi: An Online Journal of Arts & Letters, River and South Review, Poetrybay, and Angel City Review, among other print and online journals. She has been featured at various venues in NYC where she lives and works. She studies poetry with Sister Fran McManus in the St Francis of Assisi Poetry Workshop.
Drinking Gin in a Kayak on a Still Lake in June
Ted Mc Carthy is a poet, translator and playwright living in Clones, Ireland. His work has appeared in magazines in Ireland, the UK, Germany, the USA, Canada and Australia. He has had two collections published, November Wedding, and Beverly Downs. His work can be found on www.tedmccarthyspoetry.weebly.com
Carolyn Chilton Casas is a Reiki master and teacher whose favorite themes to write about are nature, mindfulness, and ways to heal. Her articles and poems have appeared in Braided Way, Energy, Grateful Living, Odyssey, Reiki News Magazine, and in other publications. You can read more of Carolyn’s work on Facebook, on Instagram @mindfulpoet_, and in her first collection of poems Our Shared Breath or a forthcoming collection titled Under the Same Sky.
Alena Casey is a poet, writer, and mother of four from Indiana. Her poem won first place in the Society of Classical Poets 2023 Haiku Competition. Her poems have also been published with The Road Not Taken, Heart of Flesh Literary Journal, and The Author’s Journal of Inventive Literature, among others. She can be found at strivingafterink.wordpress.com .
Joan E. Cashin writes from the Midwest, and she has published in many journals including Soft Cartel, Down in the Dirt, Riggwelter, Mono, and Months to Years.
Johanna Caton, O.S.B., is a Benedictine nun. She was born in the United States and lived there until adulthood, when her monastic vocation took her to England, where she now resides. Her poems have appeared in The Christian Century, The Windhover, The Ekphrastic Review, Green Hills Literary Lantern, The Catholic Poetry Room, and other venues, both online and print.
David Cazden‘s poetry has appeared in various places such as Passages North, Nimrod, The Connecticut Review, Crab Creek Review, Fugue, Valparaiso Poetry Review, The McNeese Review, Barely South Review and elsewhere. He was poetry editor of the magazine, Miller’s Pond, for five years. David lives in Danville, Kentucky USA.
Grace Centanni lives and writes in Northern Michigan. She has been published in the Tower Light, The St Anne’s Review, and Ekstasis.
Michael Centore is the editor of Today’s American Catholic, a journal of inquiry, reflection, and opinion based in the US. His work has appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, the National Catholic Reporter, Religious Socialism, the Pentecost Vigil Project, and other publications.
Judith Chalmer is the author of two books of poetry, most recently Minnow (Kelsay Books 2020) and is co-translator of two books of Japanese haiku and tanka by poet, Michiko Oishi. Her poems have been published individually in journals such as Poetica, Leaping Clear, Third Wednesday, Lilith, and Quiddity, and in anthologies such as, The Wonder of Small Things, How To Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope, Rewilding: Poems for the Environment, and Roads Taken: Contemporary Vermont Poetry. In 2023 she attended the inaugural Yetzirah Jewish Poetry Conference as a scholar. She lives in Vermont, USA where she currently serves on the board of Vermont Humanities.
Isabel Chenot has loved and practiced poetry for as long as she can remember. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in various places — most lately Ekstasis, Shotglass Journal, Vita Poetica. She writes regularly for Story Warren. Some of her poems are collected in The Joseph Tree, available from Wiseblood books.
David Chorlton is a longtime resident of Arizona where he has developed great affection for the desert. Back in his European life he made many trips by rail around Austria and beyond. One recent book, The Flying Desert, brings his watercolors together with poems and highlights the bird life where now lives.
Kai Coggin (she/her) is the inaugural Poet Laureate of the City of Hot Springs, and author of five collections, most recently Mother of Other Kingdoms (forthcoming, Harbor Editions, 2024) and Mining for Stardust (FlowerSong Press, 2021). She is a Certified Master Naturalist, a K-12 Teaching Artist in poetry with the Arkansas Arts Council, a CATALYZE grant fellow from the Mid-America Arts Alliance, and host of the longest running consecutive weekly open mic series in the country—Wednesday Night Poetry.
Cortney Collins lives on the Front range of Colorado with her two beloved feline companions, Pablo (after Neruda) and Lida Rose (after a barbershop quartet song from The Music Man.) She is the founder of the pandemic-era virtual poetry open mic and community Zoem, which ran for two years and produced an anthology of its poets’ work, Magpies: A Zoem Anthology, of which she is co-editor. Her poetry has been published by South Broadway Press, Sheila-Na-Gig, 24hour Neon Mag, and other various print and online journals.
Jonathan Cooper‘s poems and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in various publications including Thin Air, New Plains Review, Amethyst Review, Poetry Pacific, Spindrift, and The Charleston Anvil. He lives in Vancouver, Canada.
Louise Glück’s Sacred Invitation: a Reflection on Nature and the Voice of God in The Wild Iris
Ion Corcos was born in Sydney, Australia in 1969. He has been published in Cordite, Meanjin, Westerly, Plumwood Mountain, Southword, Wild Court, riddlebird, and other journals. Ion is a nature lover and a supporter of animal rights. He is the author of A Spoon of Honey (Flutter Press, 2018).
Corinne Cordasco-Pak (she/her) received her MFA from Randolph College, where she was the fiction editor for Revolute. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Write or Die, Oyster River Pages, Identity Theory, and Near Window and she has received support from the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers’ Conference. Corinne is a member of the Wildcat Writing Group and lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her husband, toddler, and their two rescue dogs. You can find her online @CECordasco
Charlotte Couse lives in Wareham, on the south-west coast of the UK. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Southampton University and works as an acupuncturist and practitioner of Chinese herbal medicine.
Dan Cuddy is currently an editor of the Loch Raven Review. In the past he was a contributing editor of the Maryland Poetry Review and Lite: Baltimore’s Literary Newspaper. He has had a book of poetry published, Handprint on the Window in 2003. Recently he has had poems published in Madness Muse Press, Horror Sleaze Trash, the Rats’s Ass Review, Roanoke Review, , Synchronized Chaos, Fixator Press, Beatnik Cowboy, Gargoyle, The Chamber Magazine and Witcraft.
Rachel Dacus is the author of five novels. Her poetry collections are Arabesque, Gods of Water and Air, Femme au Chapeau, and Earth Lessons. Rachel’s work has appeared widely in print and online, in Boulevard, Gargoyle, Prairie Schooner, and others, as well as the anthology Fire and Rain: Ecopoetry of California. She lives in the San Francisco area. Connect with her at www.racheldacus.net.
Diane Elayne Dees is the author of the chapbooks, Coronary Truth (Kelsay Books), The Last Time I Saw You (Finishing Line Press), and The Wild Parrots of Marigny (Querencia Press). Diane, who lives in Covington, Louisiana, also publishes Women Who Serve, a blog that delivers news and commentary on women’s professional tennis throughout the world. Her author blog is Diane Elayne Dees: Poet and Writer-at-Large.
Peter Dellolio was born in 1956 in New York City. Poetry, fiction, short plays, art work, and critical essays published in numerous literary magazines and journals. Poetry collections A Box Of Crazy Toys published 2018 by Xenos Books/Chelsea Editions; Bloodstream Is An Illusion Of Rubies Counting Fireplaces published February 2023 and Roller Coasters Made Of Dream Space published November 2023 by Cyberwit/Rochak Publishing.
Ellen Devlin is the author of chapbooks Rita and Heavenly Bodies at the MET, both published by Cervena Barva Press. Her recent journal publications include: Beyond Words, 2023, Muleskinner Journal, 2023, Rock Paper, Poem, 2023, Westchester Review, 2023 She lives in Irvington, New York.
Psalm with Pocket Stone and Door Key
Cat Dixon is the author of What Happens in Nebraska (Stephen F. Austin University Press, 2022) along with six other poetry chapbooks and collections. She is a poetry editor with The Good Life Review. Recent poems published in Thimble Lit Mag, Poor Ezra’s Almanac, and Moon City Review. She works full-time as a church admin and teaches creative writing part-time at the University of Nebraska, Omaha.
Clive Donovan is the author of two poetry collections, The Taste of Glass [Cinnamon Press 2021] and Wound Up With Love [Lapwing 2022] and is published in a wide variety of magazines including Acumen, Agenda, Amethyst Review, Crannog, Popshot, Prole and Stand. He lives in Totnes, Devon, UK. He was a Pushcart and Forward Prize nominee for 2022’s best individual poems.
Diane Roberson Douiyssi is a poet and writer currently living near the earth and peoples that nourish the world in South Dakota in the United States. She’s a lifelong writer who received her B.A. from Grinnell College. Her poems have appeared in Pasque Petals, song of ourself, and World Lives, Prairie Living. She’s founder of Inner Wisdom Wayfinding, where she hosts writing workshops and mentors women who want to tell their stories.
Jennifer Hyde Dracos-Tice (she/her) has poems published in Witness, Psaltery & Lyre, Crab Orchard Review, Literary Mama, Whale Road Review, Still: The Journal (2016 Judge’s Choice Award), and elsewhere. Her first full-length poetry collection, Lodged in The Belly, and her first chapbook, Roar of All Septembers, are forthcoming from Main Street Rag. A long-time high school English teacher with literature degrees from Brown (BA) and Indiana University (MA), she lives in Florida with her wife.
Tim Dwyer’s poems appear in Irish and UK publications, recently/forthcoming in Cyphers, Masculinity Anthology (Broken Sleep), New Irish Writing, Under The Radar. His chapbook is Smithy Of Our Longings (Lapwing). He worked as a psychologist in New York State Prisons, and now lives in Bangor, Northern Ireland. He is a previous contributor to Amethyst Review.
Mom of ten Anna Eastland is the author of unexpected blossoming a journey of grief and hope, and has contributed to various anthologies including Love Rebel: Reclaiming Motherhood, Canadian Converts II, Never-ending Love: Sharing Stories, Prayers and Comfort for Miscarriage and Infant Loss, Composed, and Habitations Vol.II. She was chosen as a librettist for The Lament’s Project by soprano Ai Horton, who transformed Anna’s babyloss poem “Carry Me” into a song of lament accompanied by harp.
Katherine Edgren has two books of poetry: Keeping Out the Noise, by Kelsay Books and The Grain Beneath the Gloss, by Finishing Line Press, plus two chapbooks: Long Division and Transports. Her work has appeared in journals including: Coe Review, Birmingham Poetry Review, Light, Orchards Poetry Journal, and Third Wednesday. Katherine is a former Ann Arbor City Council member. Her past work includes heading up the Health Promotion and Community Relations Department at University Health Service and serving as a Project Manager for Community Action Against Asthma a community-based, participatory and intervention research project through the School of Public Health, University of Michigan. She has a Masters Degree in Social Work from the University of Michigan.
Jeffrey Essmann is an essayist and poet living in New York. His poetry has appeared in numerous magazines and literary journals, among them Dappled Things, Amethyst Review, the St. Austin Review, U.S. Catholic, America Magazine, The Society of Classical Poets, and various venues of the Benedictine monastery with which he is an oblate. He was the 2nd Place winner in the Catholic Literary Arts 2022 Assumption of Mary poetry contest and 1st Place winner in its Advent: Mary Mother of Hope contest later that year. He is editor of the Catholic Poetry Room page on the Integrated Catholic Life website.
E. J. Evans is the author of Ghost Houses (Clare Songbirds), Conversations with the Horizon (Box Turtle Press), and the chapbook First Snow Coming (Kattywompus Press). He has poetry forthcoming in Innisfree Poetry Journal, I-70 Review, and Worcester Review. He has lived in California and in Florida and currently lives in central New York.
Helen Evans facilitates Inner Room, a pioneer lay ministry that creates space for people to be creative, and is piloting a new project, Poems for the Path Ahead, which in 2023 included poetry workshops held in a cathedral in England and in a consecrated cave in Scotland. Her debut pamphlet, Only by Flying, was published by HappenStance Press. Her poems have appeared in The Rialto, The North, Magma, Wild Court, The Friday Poem and Ink, Sweat & Tears. ‘That Angel Hovering’ was a joint winner of the Manchester Cathedral 600 Poetry Competition. She has a master’s degree with distinction in Creative Writing from the University of St Andrews. www.helenevans.co.uk
Lee Evans lives in Bath, Maine in retirement from the Maryland State
Archives and the Bath YMCA. He writes poetry whenever he cannot resist
the urge to do so.
Lydia Falls resides in the woods of New York after living abroad in South Korea and Taiwan. Her poetry collection, Beneath the Heavy, was published under Merigold Independent (2021). Lydia’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Connecticut River Review, Midway Journal, Washington Square Review, Here: a poetry journal, and elsewhere. www.lydiafalls.com
Along the Shaded Woods
Arvilla Fee teaches English Composition for Clark State College and is the managing editor for the San Antonio Review. She has published poetry, photography, and short stories in numerous presses, including Contemporary Haibun Online, Calliope, North of Oxford, Rat’s Ass Review, Mudlark, and many others. Her poetry books, The Human Side and This is Life, are available on Amazon. For Arvilla, writing produces the greatest joy when it connects us to each other. To learn more about her work, you can visit her website: https://soulpoetry7.com/
There’s a Meadow
Jenna Wysong Filbrun is the author of the poetry collection, Away (Finishing Line Press, 2023). Her poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net and have appeared in publications such as Blue Heron Review, EcoTheo Review, Wild Roof Journal, and others. Find her on Instagram @jwfilbrun or visit her website: https://jennawysongfilbrun.wixsite.com/poetry.
Alexandra Fössinger is the author of the poetry collection Contrapasso (Cephalopress, 2022). Her work is published or forthcoming in Tears in the Fence, The High Window, Frogmore Papers, Reliquiae, Mono, La Piccioletta Barca, and the White Stag Spirit anthology, among others. She is mostly interested in the spaces between things, the overlooked, the unsaid.
Alfred Fournier is an entomologist, writer and community volunteer in Phoenix, Arizona. He runs poetry workshops for Connect and Heal, a local nonprofit. His poems have appeared in Amethyst Review, Cagibi, The Sunlight Press, Gyroscope Review, Ponder Review and elsewhere. His first collection, A Summons on the Wind (2023) is available from Kelsay Books or on Amazon.com. Web: alfredfournier.com. X: @AlfredFournier4.
Jacob Friesenhahn teaches Religious Studies and Philosophy at Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio. He serves as Program Head for Theology and Spiritual Action.
Cynthia Gallaher, a Chicago-based poet, is author of four poetry collections, including Epicurean Ecstasy: More Poems About Food, Drink, Herbs and Spices, and three chapbooks, including Drenched. Her award-winning nonfiction/memoir/creativity guide is Frugal Poets’ Guide to Life: How to Live a Poetic Life, Even If You Aren’t a Poet. One of her poems will be sent on NASA’s flight to the south pole of the moon later this decade.
Timothy Geiger is the author of the poetry collections Weatherbox, (winner of the 2019 Vern Rutsala Poetry Prize from Cloudbank Books), The Curse of Pheromones, and Blue Light Factory. His newest collection is In a Field of Hallowed Be, (September 2024, Terrapin Books). He lives on a small farmstead in Northwest Ohio and teaches Creative Writing, Poetry, and Book Arts at the University of Toledo.
Ken Gierke writes primarily in free verse and haiku. His poetry has been published or is forthcoming both in print and online in such places as Amethyst Review, As It Ought to Be Magazine, Ekphrastic Review, Poetry Breakfast, and Silver Birch Press. Glass Awash, his first collection of poetry, was published by Spartan Press in 2022. His website: https://rivrvlogr.com/
Mark Goodwin is a poet-sound-artist, fiction-maker & re-thinker who speaks and writes in differing ways. He is also a walker, balancer, climber, stroller … and negotiator of places. Mark has a number of books & chapbooks with various poetry houses, including Leafe Press, Longbarrow Press, & Shearsman Books. His latest chapbooks are: to ‘B’ nor as ‘tree’ (Intergraphia, Sheffield, October 2022) & Of Gone Fox (The Hedgehog Poetry Press, Clevedon, April 2023). Mark lives with his partner on a narrowboat just north of Leicester, in the English Midlands. He tweets poems from @kramawoodgin, and some of his sound-enhanced poetry is here: https://markgoodwin-poet-sound-artist.bandcamp.com
Caroline Gorman is writer and public library lover from Indiana. She studied English literature and religion at the University of Evansville, where she won awards for both her academic and creative writing.
Ginger Graziano, originally from New York City, is a author, painter and graphic designer living in Asheville, North Carolina where she receives inspiration from the mountain beauty. Her poems have been published in The American Journal of Poetry, Kakalak, Sky Island Journal, The Great Smokies Review, among others. Her memoir, See, There He Is, was published in 2015. http://www.gingergraziano.com/writing.
James Green is a retired university professor and administrator. He has published six chapbooks of poetry and individual poems have appeared in literary journals in Ireland, the UK, and the USA. His previous works have been nominated for a Puschcart Prize, “Best of the Net” and the Modern Language Association Conference on Christianity Book of the Year; and, his chapbook titled Long Journey Home: Poems on Classical Myths won the Charles Dickson Prize sponsored by the Georgia Poetry Society. His website can be found at http://www.jamesgreenpoetry.net.
Melanie Green‘s most recent book of poetry, A Long, Wide Stretch of Calm, was published by The Poetry Box, of Beaverton, Oregon, USA. Her poems explore the numinous, an appreciation of nature, and living with chronic illness.
wind-riffle through the leafy green
Ray Greenblatt is an editor on the Schuylkill Valley Journal and teaches a “Joy of Poetry” course at Temple University-OLLI. His newest book of poetry is From an Old Hotel on the Irish Coast (Parnilis Media, 2023).
Carl Griffin is from South Wales. His first poetry collection, Throat of Hawthorn, was published by Indigo Dreams Publishing in 2019. His book-length poem, Arrival at Elsewhere, written for charity with the help of one hundred poets, was published by Against the Grain Press in 2020
Gerry Grubbs has published poems in Haikuniverse, Poet Lore and other magazines. His recent book, Learning A New Way To Listen, has just been released by Dos Madres Press.
Without Holding Anything Or Doing Anything Or Trying
Reading the Rain; A Gathering; The Heart
Michelle Gubbay currently lives in Los Angeles, and has centered the many decades of her life on social justice activism and creative writing. Since 2013, she has been with InsideOUT Writers, leading weekly expressive writing sessions with incarcerated youth. “Torah and Dream” is a chapter in a multi-genre book-in-progress, told in the voice of a fictional alter-ego narrator. (In many places, including this chapter, there is little fictional overlay.) One of the book’s themes is the refusal to allow the brazen actors who interpret the Jewish tradition as a vengeful, narrow legacy to claim the entire rich and diverse Jewish heritage as exclusively their own.
Retired and living in Orkney, Huw Gwynn-Jones comes from a line of poets in the Welsh bardic tradition. His work has appeared in Acumen, Tears in the Fence, Lighthouse, Obsessed with Pipework and The Galway Review. His debut pamphlet, The Art of Counting Stars, was published in 2021.
Ken Hada‘s latest collection is Come Before Winter (Turning Plow Press, 2023). His book, Contour Feathers, (Turning Plow Press, 2021), received the Oklahoma Book Award for Poetry. More at: kenhada.org
Thunder Sounds Morning Sky Alive
Liza Halley works as an elementary school Library Teacher. Liza helped establish the Poet Laureate position in her hometown of Arlington, MA. She is the co-founder of Write Around Portland, a nonprofit based in Portland, OR that amplifies voices and builds community through our writing workshops, literary programming, books, and readings.She loves to build community through the written word, be it through poetry, zines, or comics. She has a poem that was recently published in Braided Way Magazine: Faces and Voices of Spiritual Practice.
When You Don’t Know What Else to Do
David Hanlon is a poet from Cardiff, Wales. You can find his work online in over 90 magazines, including Rust & Moth, Barren Magazine, The Lumiere Review & trampset. His first chapbook Spectrum of Flight is available at Animal Heart Press. You can follow him on twitter @davidhanlon13 and Instagram @hanlon6944
Nathaniel Lee Hansen is the author of the short-story collection Measuring Time & Other Stories (Wiseblood Books, 2019) and the poetry collection Your Twenty-First Century Prayer Life (Cascade Books, 2018). His website is plainswriter.com. He is on X @plainswriter.
Rinat Harel holds a Ph.D. in Creative Writing from the University of Exeter, England. Her writing has been published in various literary magazines and received several awards. She currently works on a poetry collection titled Poems from the Boidem.
Angels and Scars; Scars or Angels
Lydia Harris has made her home in the Orkney island of Westray. Her second full collection Henrietta’s Library of the Whole Wide World was published by Blue Diode in March.
Maura H. Harrison is a writer, photographer, and fiber artist from Fredericksburg, VA. Her works have appeared or are forthcoming in Amethyst Review, Dappled Things, Ekstatis Magazine, Solum Journal, Windhover, and others.
A writer and poet, Mary Baca Haque prefers to capture the essence of the natural world, coupled with elements of love and peace, hence her forthcoming publication, Painting the Sky with Love, (MacMillan, Feiwel & Friends Fall 2024). You can find her work featured most recently in the Wild Roof Journal along with the Cosmic Daffodils Journal (2023). Additionally, she has been featured in a travel book and a previous publication titled Madalynn the Monarch and her Quest to Michoacán. She loves to experiment with all forms of poetry, spend time with family and travel and resides in Chicago, IL with her partner Bob and her mini goldendoodle Georgina.
Janet Ruth Heller is the past president of the Michigan College English Association and a past president of the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature. She has a Ph.D. in English Language and Literature from the University of Chicago. She has published four poetry books: Nature’s Olympics (Wipf and Stock, 2021), Exodus(WordTech Editions, 2014), Folk Concert: Changing Times (Anaphora Literary Press, 2012), and Traffic Stop (Finishing Line Press, 2011); a scholarly book, Coleridge, Lamb, Hazlitt, and the Reader of Drama (University of Missouri Press, 1990); a middle-grade fiction chapter book for children, The Passover Surprise (Fictive Press, 2015, 2016); and a fiction picture book for children about bullying, How the Moon Regained Her Shape (Arbordale, 2006; 7th edition 2022), that has won four national awards, including a Children’s Choices award. Her website is https://www.janetruthheller.com
Jackie Henshall is an established artist working mostly in glass from her studio inside an old woollen mill in Carmarthenshire, Wales. She has recently launched her first book of poems and drawings, there came upon me, with a gallery exhibition, with some poetry readings as well to add another dimension. Previous work has been published in Amethyst Reviewand Braided Way, where she was nominated for Pushcart prize. http://www.jackiehenshall.co.uk
Kale Hensley is a West Virginian by birth and a poet by faith. You can keep up with them at kalehens.com.
Lory Widmer Hess is an American currently living with her family in Switzerland, where she works with adults with developmental disabilities and recently completed a training in spiritual direction. Her writing has been published in journals including Parabola, Vita Poetica, Pensive, The Windhover, Anglican Theological Review, and Motherwell, and she is the author of When Fragments Make a Whole: A Personal Journey Through Healing Stories in the Bible (Floris Books). Find her online at enterenchanted.com
Sister Lou Ella Hickman, OVISS, has a master’s degree in theology from St. Mary’s University in San Antonio and is a former teacher and librarian. She is a certified spiritual director as well as a poet and writer. Her poems have appeared in numerous magazines such as America, First Things, and Emmanuel as well as numerous anthologies. Her first book of poetry, she: robed and wordless was published in 2015 and her second book, writing the stars will be published in 0ctober, 2024. (Both by Press 53) Five poems from her first book were set to music by James Lee lll entitled “Chavah’s Daughters Speak” and was performed in six major national concerts from 2021 to 2024.
Angela Hoffman lives in Wisconsin. With her retirement from teaching and the pandemic coinciding, she took to writing poetry. Her poetry has been widely published. Angela’s collections include Resurrection Lily 2022, Olly Olly Oxen Free 2023, and Hold the Contraries, forthcoming 2024 (Kelsay Books).
Murmurations of Becoming More Human
Karen Paul Holmes has two poetry books, No Such Thing as Distance (Terrapin) and Untying the Knot (Aldrich). Her poems have appeared on The Writer’s Almanac, The Slowdown, and Verse Daily. Publications include Diode, Plume, and Valparaiso Review. She has twice been a finalist for the Lascaux Review’s Poetry Prize. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia, USA and spends time in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
In this dream, are we the seer or the seen
John Hopkins has been an English teacher for forty-two years. He was the New England Association of Teachers of English (NEATE) poet of the year in 2008. John’s poetry has appeared in Commonweal, Saint Anthony Messenger, The National Catholic Reporter, The Leaflet, Sr. Melannie Svoboda’s blog, “Sunflower Seeds,” The Catholic Poetry Room, Amethyst Review, and Father Timothy Joyce’s book Celtic Quest. For the past six years, John has been a Benedictine Oblate affiliated with Glastonbury Abbey in Hingham, Massachusetts. He loves to read, write letters, tramp the Blue Hills, and play pickleball with Kerry, his amazing wife, and mother of their wonderful children: Kate, Danny, and Brian. In February of 2021, John’s first book of poems, Celtic Nan, was published, and in February of 2023, his second book, Make My Heart a Pomegranate was published. You can reach John at brotherjohnnyhop@gmail.com.
Kelly Houle’s poems have been published in Calyx, Crab Orchard Review, Radar Poetry, Red Rock Review, Sequestrum, and others. She is also a painter.
Juleigh Howard-Hobson’s work can be found in Eternal Haunted Summer, The Deadlands, Polu Texni, 34 Orchard, Under Her Skin (Black Spot Books), Vastarien: Women’s Horror (Grimscribe Press) and many other venues. Her latest collection is Curses, Black Spells and Hexes (Alien Buddha Press). She tweets: @poetforest and lives on the Pacific North West coast of America in a crumbling Victorian, where many spirits besides her own repose.
Melissa Huff feeds her poetry from the power and mystery of the natural world and the ways in which body, nature and spirit intertwine. An advocate of the power of poetry presented out loud, she twice won awards in the BlackBerry Peach Prizes for Poetry: Spoken and Heard, sponsored by the (U.S.) National Federation of State Poetry Societies. Recent publishing credits include Gyroscope Review, Snapdragon: A Journal of Art and Healing, Encore: Prize Poems 2022 (NFSPS), Persimmon Tree and Blue Heron Review. Melissa has been frequently sighted making her way between Illinois and Colorado.
Christina Hulet lives on Bainbridge Island, Washington with her husband and two boys. She has spent her career doing public policy and community work, including as policy advisor to a former Governor, as an elected school board member, and through her business helping organizations improve outcomes in health care, equity, and other initiatives. She has participated in several poetry workshops, including through Fishplate Poetry and Poets on the Coast.
Ulrica Hume is the author of An Uncertain Age, a spiritual mystery novel, and House of Miracles, a collection of stories, one of which was selected by PEN and broadcast on NPR. Her work appears online (EcoTheo, RIC Journal, Short Édition, etc.), in literary journals (Firmament), and in anthologies. She is a labyrinth guide.
Gene Hyde is a writer, poet, and photographer who lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. He has spent most of his adult life finding inspiration, solace and strength in these ancient, verdant mountains. His writing and photography have appeared in such publications as Appalachian Journal, San Antonio Review, The Banyan Review, Raven’s Perch, Valley Voices, Tiny Seed Literary Journal, and Mountains Piled Upon Mountains: Appalachian Nature Writing in the Anthropocene.
Paul Ilechko is a British American poet and occasional songwriter who lives with his partner in Lambertville, NJ. His work has appeared in many journals, including The Bennington Review, The Night Heron Barks, Southword, Permafrost, and Pirene’s Fountain. His first book is scheduled for 2025 publication by Gnashing Teeth Publishing.
Judy Ireland is the author of Cement Shoes, a poetry collection that won the Sinclair Poetry Prize in 2013. Her poems have appeared in Hotel Amerika, Calyx, Saranac Review, Eclipse, Cold Mountain, Coe Review, SWWIM, the South Florida Poetry Journal, and other journals, as well as in several anthologies, including the Best Indie Lit New England anthology and Voices from the Fierce Intangible World. She is a Poetry Editor and Reading Series Producer for the South Florida Poetry Journal, Co-Director of Performance Poets of the Palm Beaches, and she teaches at Palm Beach State College.
My Late Brother Appears on my Apple Watch
Danielle Isbell writes poetry and essays, most of which circle questions about life in a body and practices of meaning making. She studied theopoetics, religion, and conflict in graduate school. Her home is Seattle, Wa, and she is grateful every day to live in a wondrous, delightful, shifty land.
Window, shadow, god: Hiddenness as a path to the holy – an essay
John Claiborne Isbell was born in Seattle, USA and later lived in Europe and the United Kingdom, where he went to school. He has been teaching languages for some time, teaching French and German at universities in the United Kingdom and the United States. He has published various books, including a volume of poetry, Allegro, with a picture of a cello on the cover. Two more books came out recently, both about women authors.
F.D. Jackson lives in the southeastern U.S., along with her husband and sundry furry family members. She writes about loss/grief and the restorative and transformative power of nature. Her work has appeared in FERAL, Book of Matches, Cosmic Daffodil, and Poetry Breakfast. She has work forthcoming in Green Ink Poetry, San Antonio Review, and Wild Roof Journal.
Karen Luke Jackson, winner of the Rash Poetry Award and the Sidney Lanier Poetry Contest, draws upon family lore, contemplative practices, and nature for inspiration. Her poems have appeared in Atlanta Review, EcoTheo Review, Susurrus, Salvation South, and Friends Journal, among others. Karen has also authored three poetry collections: If You Choose To Come, paying homage to the healing beauty of the Blue Ridge Mountains; The View Ever Changing, exploring the lifelong pull of homeplace and family ties; and GRIT, chronicling her sister’s adventures as an award-winning clown. Karen is a facilitator with the Center for Courage & Renewal. She lives in a cottage on a goat pasture in western North Carolina where she companions people on their spiritual journeys. karenlukejackson.com
In his last days, he leaked light
Alison Jennings is a Seattle-based poet who worked as a journalist and accountant and taught English and math in public schools before returning to her first love, poetry. Since then, she has had a mini-chapbook and over 100 other poems published internationally in numerous journals, including Amethyst Review, Cathexis Northwest Press, Meat for Tea, Mslexia, Poetic Sun, Red Door, Society of Classical Poets, Sonic Boom, Stone Poetry, and The Raw Art Review. She has also won 3rd Place/Honorable Mention or been a semi-finalist in several contests. For more details and links to her published poems, visit her website at https://sites.google.com/view/airandfirepoet/home.
Spiritual Mending (To Emily D)
Carter Davis Johnson is a Ph.D. candidate in English at the University of Kentucky. In addition to his scholarly work, he writes creatively and has been published in Ekstasis, Road Not Taken, Flyover Country, and Front Porch Republic. He also writes a weekly Substack publication, Dwelling: Embracing the non-identical in life and art.
Jody Reis Johnson is an emerging poet from St. Paul, Minnesota, whose writing grows out of a practice of silence. Her essays on spirituality and contemporary social issues appear in a variety of periodicals including Bearings and Middlebury Magazine. Jody is a retired mental health professional who now teaches contemplative spirituality and practice, facilitates retreats, and provides spiritual guidance to individuals. She enjoys travel, cooking, and surfing with her grandchildren during winters in Hawaii.
Kaylene Johnson-Sullivan is an author who lives in Alaska. She has published six books of non-fiction, completed a historical novel, and writes poetry when the soul calls for such. Two of her poems were recently accepted for the anthology Alaska Literary Field Guide. Her essay “Crossing the Wild River” appears in Deep Wild Journal: Writing from the Backcountry 2024.
K.L. Johnston is an author, poet, and photographer whose work has appeared in numerous literary magazines, anthologies, and travel journals as well as a photo illustrated book of meditations. She holds a degree in English and Communications from the University of South Carolina and her wide-ranging interests contribute to her writing and art. Her work explores the connections of humanity with the physical, spiritual, and liminal places she has stumbled into in her travels and in her own back yard. She devotes her unscheduled time to writing and satisfying her curiosity about people and this planet. You can find out more by visiting her Facebook page “A Written World”.
Connie Johnstone was found by poetry writing in 2021. In her other lives she wrote a novel, The Legend of Olivia Cosmos Montevideo (Atlantic Monthly Press); edited an anthology, I’ve Always Meant to Tell You (Pocket Books); was professor of English and chair of creative writing at American River College; changed careers and was a Hospice Chaplain with Kaiser Permanente, used Narrative Therapy, became a witness to others’ stories. Her degrees include MFA from Bennington College and MTS from Harvard Divinity School. She lives and writes in Davis, California.
Leonard Cohen Sang to Me at Dawn
Helen Jones was born in Chester, U.K. in 1954. She gained a degree in English, many years ago from University College London and later an M.Ed. from the University of Liverpool. She is now happily retired and spend a lot of her time writing and making a new garden. Her poetry has been published in several journals in the U.K.
T. Jones is a poet, cultural curator, and literary citizen who hails from a lineage of Buddhist rice paddy farmers. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and is a Writer’s Grotto Rooted and Written Fellow.
Patricia Joslin is a poet and essayist living in Charlotte, North Carolina. Her chapbook, I’ll Buy Flowers Again Tomorrow: Poems of Loss and Healing, was published in 2023. Poems have appeared in Kakalak, Tipton Poetry Journal, New Note Poetry, Eunoia Review, Wilderness House Literary Review and the San Antonio Review. Patricia is a former educator and now an active volunteer in the community working to address issues of food insecurity. She loves live jazz, chamber music, solo travel, bold red wine, and her four young grandsons.
Jeanne Julian is author of Like the O in Hope and two chapbooks. Her poems are in Kakalak, Panoply, RavensPerch, Ocotillo Review and elsewhere, and have won awards from Reed Magazine, Comstock Review, Naugatuck River Review,and Maine Poets’ Society. She reviews books for The Main Street Rag. www.jeannejulian.com
Jacqueline Jules is the author of Manna in the Morning (Kelsay Books, 2021) and Itzhak Perlman’s Broken String, winner of the 2016 Helen Kay Chapbook Prize from Evening Street Press. Her poetry has appeared in over 100 publications including The Sunlight Press, Gyroscope Review, One Art, and Amethyst Review. She is also the author of two poetry books for young readers, Tag Your Dreams: Poems of Play and Persistence. (Albert Whitman, 2020) and Smoke at the Pentagon: Poems to Remember (Bushel & Peck, 2023). Visit www.jacquelinejules.com
Margaret Anne Kean received her BA in British/American Literature from Scripps College and her MFA from Antioch University/Los Angeles. Her chapbook collection, Cleaving the Clouds, was published by Kelsay Books in 2023. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and her work has appeared in various journals including Eunoia Review, San Antonio Review, EcoTheoReview, and Tupelo Quarterly.
Jane Keenan has been writing poems since the age of six, and has already contributed to Amethyst Review and All Shall Be Well: Poems for Julian of Norwich. She met Susan Brice and Viv Longley on the Open University’s MA course in creative writing. In 2022 the three friends published Daughters of Thyme. (www.dotipress.com) and are now compiling a sister volume, Home Thyme. Jane lives in the Scottish Borders with her beautiful dog, Wellington.
Garret Keizer is the author of The World Pushes Back, winner of the 2018 X. J. Kennedy Poetry Prize, and seven books of nonfiction, including Privacyand The Unwanted Sound of Everything We Want. He is also a contributing editor of Harper’s Magazine and Virginia Quarterly Review. His website is here: https://garretkeizer.com.
Liz Kendall works as a Shiatsu and massage practitioner and Tai Chi Qigong teacher. Her poetry has been published by Candlestick Press, The Hedgehog Poetry Press, and Mslexia. Liz’s book Meet Us and Eat Us: Food plants from around the world is co-authored with an artist and ethnobotanist. It explores biodiversity through poetry, prose, and fine art photography. Her website is https://theedgeofthewoods.uk and she is on Twitter/X and Facebook @rowansarered, and on Instagram @meetusandeatus.
A Large and Unexpected Statue of Anubis
A mild panic attack at the end of the day
Love Poem of the Long-Dead Egyptian
Laurie Klein’s prose has appeared in Brevity, Beautiful Things, Tiferet, Cold Mountain Review, The Windhover, and elsewhere. Winner of the Thomas Merton Prize and a Pushcart nominee, she is the author of Where the Sky Opens (Poeima/Cascade). Her second collection for The Poeima Poetry Series, House of 49 Doors: entries in a life, will be published by Cascade in 2024.She lives in the Pacific Northwest.
Joseph Kleponis lives North of Boston, Massachusetts. His poems have appeared in First Literary Review – East, the Rockvale Reviews and other publications. Kelsay Books published his first book Truth’s Truth: Poetic Portraits in 2021.
Steven Knepper teaches in the Department of English, Rhetoric, and Humanistic Studies at Virginia Military Institute. His poems have appeared in The Alabama Literary Review, The William and Mary Review, First Things, Presence, Pembroke Magazine, Seminary Ridge Review, SLANT, The American Journal of Poetry, and other journals.
Philip C. Kolin is the Distinguished Professor of English (Emeritus) and Editor Emeritus of the Southern Quarterly at the University of Southern Mississippi. He has published over 40 books, including twelve collections of poetry and chapbooks. Among his most recent titles are Emmett Till in Different States (Third World Press, 2015), Reaching Forever (Poiema Series, Cascade Books, 2019), Delta Tears (Main Street Rag, 2020), Americorona: Poems about the Pandemic (Wipf and Stock, 2021) and Evangeliaries: Poems (Angelico, 2024). He also has poems included in Christian Century’s Taking Root in the Heart (Paraclete, 2023).
Janet Krauss, after retirement from teaching 39 years of English at Fairfield University, continues to mentor students, lead a poetry discussion at the Wilton Library, participate in a CT. Poetry Society Workshop, and one other plus two poetry groups. She co-leads the Poetry Program of the Black Rock Art Guild. She has two books of poetry: Borrowed Scenery (Yuganta Press) and Through the Trees of Autumn (Spartina Press). Many of her poems have been published in Amethyst Review, and her haiku in Cold Moon Journal.
Ode to the Tree across the Street
Sharon Kunde is an Assistant Professor at the Maine College of Art and Design. Her research focuses on the racialization of representations of nature and naturalness in the context of the emergence of national literary studies. She has published work in publications including Twentieth Century Literature, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Harvard Review, ISLE, and Cincinnati Review, and her chapbook Year of the Sasquatch was published by Dancing Girl Press in 2022.
Michael J. LaFrancis is a trusted advisor, advocate, author and connector supporting individuals, groups and organizations aligning purpose and capabilities in service of their highest ideals. Writing poetry is a contemplative practice providing him with insight and inspiration for living a creative life. LaFrancis’ hobbies include landscape gardening, nature walks, collecting fine art and writing. He and his partner Sharon are co-authors of their autobiography: Our Wonderful Life. They have two sons and have recently been promoted to being grandparents.
Cate Latimer is a poet from Portland, Oregon. She is a first-year at Brown University studying English and Urban Studies and the founder and publisher at Stepping Stone Publishing, a student-focused publishing company. Her work has been nationally recognized by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards.
Melissa Laussmann resides in a small town in Texas with her daughter. She loves to travel and watch old movies. You can find some of Melissa’s work in Haiku Journal, Poetry Quarterly, and Three Line Journal.
Sharon RC Lee has been writing poetry and prose since she was young. For the last twenty years she has been focused on raising her kids and on her career as a psychologist and therapist trainer in Portland, Oregon. Now on sabbatical, she is working on a memoir as well as essays and poetry. She has an essay that was published in Hip Mama, and she has written two chapters for a book edited by Ken Hardy that will be published next year.
Joan Lerman is a writer and musician living in Southern California. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Emmanuel Magazine, Academy of the Heart and Mind, 300 Days of Sun, Ionosphere, Pure Slush, Orange Juice Poetry Journal, and New Croton Review.
Zav Levinson studied English literature at McGill University and Université de Montréal (M.A., Études Anglaises). A trained cabinetmaker, he ran the studio arts workshop for the Faculty of Fine Arts at Concordia University for 33 years. He is poetry co-editor of JONAH magazine and co-founder of the 2-Susan’s Poetry Circle. His second chapbook, reverb, from Sky of Ink Press, was published in the fall of 2022. His poems have appeared most recently in Montreal Writes, Canadian Jewish News and Dreamers Magazine as well as in the QWF fundraising chapbook My Island, My City and in the 2 Susans Poetry Circle 6th anniversary chapbook What Lasts.
Julie Leoni lives on the Welsh Borders where she teaches yoga, swims in the river at the bottom of her garden and raises raspberries, rhubarb and her children. In 2024 she was announced the winner of the Bournemouth Poetry Prize, shortlisted for the Cinnamon New Voices Award, and again for their pamphlet award, the Mslexia Poetry award, and the Fish memoir prize. Her first collection of poems Farmotherlands will be published by Hedgehog Press in Spring 2025. Meanwhile she blogs and runs family retreats in community settings. Her PhD means that she gets to teach interesting courses at a number of universities and schools. She is also the author of three non-fiction books which can be found at www.julieleoni.com.
Alexis Levitin: his 48 books in translation include Clarice Lispector’s Soulstorm and Eugenio de Andrade’s Forbidden Words, both from New Directions. More recent collections include Salgado Maranhão’s Blood of the Sun and Rosa Alice Branco’s Cattle of the Lord, both from Milkweed Editions. His translations have appeared in well over two hundred literary magazines, including Agni, American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review, The Literary Review, Massachusetts Review, New England Review, The New York Times, New Letters, Partisan Review and Prairie Schooner. The Last Ruy Lopez: Tales from the Royal Game, a collection of chess-related stories he wrote during the pandemic, has just been released by Russell Enterprises. His study W.H. Auden at Work: The Craft of Revision has just been published by Lexington Books.
YAD – a poem by Leonore Scliar-Cabral translated by Alexis Levitin
Kathleen Brewin Lewis grew up among the moss-draped oaks of Savannah, Georgia, eighteen miles from the Atlantic Ocean, in a land crossed with creeks and rivers. She writes primarily about the natural world and family life. Her collection of poetry, Magicicada & Other Marvels, was published by Shanti Arts in 2022.
James Lilliefors is a poet, journalist, and novelist, whose writing has appeared in Door is a Jar, Salvation South, 3 Elements Review, Ploughshares, The Washington Post, The Miami Herald and elsewhere. His first collection of poetry will be published by Finishing Line Press. He’s a former writing fellow at the University of Virginia, and now lives in Florida.
Viv Longley has been writing for her own pleasure since she was a child. Later in life she undertook an MA in Creative Writing at The Open University, specialising in poetry. As well as having one collection (Tally Sheet, Currock Press, 2021) she is undertaking a number of collaborative publications, notably, Daughters of Thyme. She is also preparing a second collection of her own and a number of essays – the latter to be called I am in a Hurry. ‘Now nearing my 80’s, you just never know how much time you have left!’
Rupert M Loydell is a writer, editor and abstract artist. His many books of poetry include Dear Mary (Shearsman, 2017) and The Return of the Man Who Has Everything (Shearsman 2015); and he has edited anthologies such as Yesterday’s Music Today (co-edited with Mike Ferguson, Knives Forks and Spoons Press 2014), and Troubles Swapped for Something Fresh: manifestos and unmanifestos (Salt, 2010).
Mathew Lyons is based in East London. His poems have appeared in Bad Lilies, The Interpreter’s House, Reliquiae and Under the Radar, among others.
Alicia A. McCartney lives with her husband and daughter in southwestern Ohio, where she writes and works as a professor of English literature. Her poetry is forthcoming in Ekstasis.
Eva McGinnis, PhD has published three books of poetry, the latest Strands of Luminescence: Poetry of the Spirit’s Quest. Her poignant poems are in several anthologies and magazines as well as on placards in Poetry in the Park in her hometown of Port Angeles, Washington for the fourth year in a row. Eva writes from her heart about her spirituality which she experiences deeply in Nature.
John McMeans is a transplant to the Texas Panhandle, where he resides with his wife and sons. He received a degree in Geography and works for Refugee Language Project (refugeelanguage.org). His writing has appeared in Texas Poetry Assignment and an anthology published by the High Plains Poetry Project.
Shaun Anthony McMichael is the editor of The Shadow Beside Me (2020) and The Story of My Heart (2021), poetry collections written by trauma-affected youth dealing with mental illness, and instability. Since 2007, he has taught writing to students from around the world, in classrooms, juvenile detention halls, mental health treatment centers, and homeless youth drop-ins throughout the Seattle area. Over 80 of his short stories, poems, essays, author interviews, and book reviews have appeared in publications like The Chicago Tribune, Litro, Bull, Spoon River Review, PopMatters, and more. His debut short story collection, The Wild Familiar, is forthcoming from CJ Press (Fall, 2024). He lives with his wife and son in Seattle where he attends church most Sundays. He hosts an annual literary art reading, Shadow Work Writers. Visit him at his website shaunanthonymcmichael.com.
Simon MacCulloch lives in London. His poems live in Reach Poetry, The Dawntreader, Spectral Realms, Aphelion, Black Petals, Grim and Gilded, Ekstasis, Pulsebeat Poetry Journal, Ephemeral Elegies, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Emberr, View from Atlantis, Altered Reality, The Sirens Call, The Chamber Magazine, I Become the Beast, Lovecraftiana, Awen and elsewhere.
Maggie Mackay’s poem ‘How to Distil a Guid Scotch Malt’ is in the Poetry Archive’s WordView permanent collection. Her second collection The Babel of Human Travel (Impspired.com ) was published in 2022. She reviews poetry collections at The Friday Poem (https://thefridaypoem.com). Her best downtime moments are spent with her greyhound and a malt whisky. Twitter handle is @Bonniedreamer.
Wendy Jean MacLean’s work is shaped by her lifelong engagement with mythology, gospel and spirituality. Published in Crosswinds, Gathering, Green Spirit, Ancient Paths, Boosey and Hawkes, GIA, Streetlight, Arborealis. Sheila-na-Gig, Collegeville Bearings Online. Awards include: Don Gutteridge Poetry Prize; Big Pond Rumours Chapbook; Open Heart; Poetry Matters; the Drummond, and a Pushcart nomination. Her music has been commissioned and sung internationally. In 2023 two pieces debuted at the national Unison Choir Festival in Halifax, in commemoration of the LGBTQ purge. Her latest book, On Small Wings, was published in 2022 by Wet Ink Books. Wendy is a Spiritual Director and minister of the United Church of Canada. She is currently part of the Deeptime Network leadership cohort.
Simon Maddrell writes as a queer Manx man, thriving with HIV in Brighton & Hove. Since 2019, over a hundred of his poems have appeared in numerous publications including Acumen, AMBIT, Butcher’s Dog, Poetry Wales, Propel, Stand, The Gay & Lesbian Review, The Moth, The Rialto, Under the Radar. In 2020, Simon’s debut chapbook, Throatbone, was published by UnCollected Press, and Queerfella jointly-won The Rialto Open Pamphlet Competition. In 2023, The Whole Island and Isle of Sin, were both Poetry Book Society Selections. a finger in derek jarman’s mouth marks 30 years after Jarman’s death (Polari Press, Feb. 2024).
I’ve got this gut feeling that inside somewhere
English and creative writing professor at Lock Haven University, Marjorie Maddox has published 14 collections of poetry—most recently Begin with a Question(Paraclete, International Book + Illumination Book Award winner and CMA Award, 3rd) and the ekphrastic collections Heart Speaks, Is Spoken For (with Karen Elias) and In the Museum of Her Daughter’s Mind, a collaboration with her artist daughter (www.hafer.work). She has poems included in the anthology Christian Poetry in America since 1940 . In addition, she has published the story collection What She Was Saying (Fomite) and 4 children’s and YA books. She has poems included in the anthology Christian Poetry in America since 1940 (Paraclete Press), edited by Michael Mattix and Sally Thomas, and in Taking Root in the Heart, edited by Jill Baumgaertner.Please see www.marjoriemaddox.com
Mary Grace Mangano is a poet, writer, and professor. She received her MFA in poetry at the University of St. Thomas in Houston and her poetry, essays, and reviews appear in Church Life Journal, The Windhover, Orchards Poetry Journal, The North American Anglican, Fare Forward, Ekstasis, and others. She teaches at Seton Hall University and lives in New Jersey.
Christopher Martin is a Buddhist poet living by the Mouth of the Tyne on the North East coast of England. He is widely published in various publications, both in print and online. His debut collection has recently been published by @theblackcatpoetrypress.
D.S. Martin is Poet-in-Residence at McMaster Divinity College, and Series Editor for the Poiema Poetry Series from Cascade Books. He has written five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021), Ampersand (2018), and Conspiracy of Light: Poems Inspired by the Legacy of C.S. Lewis (2013). He and his wife live in Brampton, Ontario; they have two adult sons.
Since 2019, Claire Massey has been a selection editor for the biennial print journal, The Emerald Coast Review. She is poetry editor for The Pen Woman magazine. Her work appears in numerous journals of the literary arts, including POEM, Snapdragon Journal of Art and Healing, Panoply, Wilderness House Literary Review, The Avalon Literary Review, Literally Stories, and The Listening Anthology. Recently nominated for a 2023 Pushcart Prize, her work has twice won awards from the National Soul-Making Keats Competition, and was longlisted for a 2023 Letter Review prize. Read more of her aesthetic in her debut collection, Driver Side Window: Poems & Prose.
Skinner Matthews is a poet living and writing in Bluffton SC. He writes for spiritual enlightenment of, and with an informed knowledge of the working class. He hopes his poetry brings light to the many dark places that exist like landmines in the streets, neighborhoods, and family households of the working class. His work is published or forthcoming in Autumn Sky PoetryDaily, Livina Press, Ekstasis, As Surely as the Sun, Rising Phoenix Review, Stray Branch Literary Journal, and Sea Change Anthology [8th Edition]
Carl Mayfield began writing poems because he wanted to get invited to interesting parties. That has actually happened once or twice, but the parties were paler than they were advertised.
Ken Meisel is a poet and psychotherapist from the Detroit area. He is a 2012 Kresge Arts Literary Fellow, Pushcart Prize nominee, best of the net nominee, winner of the Liakoura Prize and the author of nine poetry collections. His new book, The Light Most Glad of All, was published in 2023 by Kelsay Press. It was reviewed by Tipton Poetry Journal and Trampoline Magazine. Other collections include: Studies Inside the Consent of a Distance (Kelsay Books: 2022) and Our Common Souls: New & Selected Poems of Detroit (Blue Horse Press: 2020). He has work in Crab Creek Review, Concho River Review, San Pedro River Review, Panapoly, Sheila-Na-Gig and The MacGuffin.
Mary Magdalene Utters Words of Wisdom
Rowan Middleton teaches creative writing and English literature at the University of Gloucestershire. His pamphletThe Stolen Herd is published by Yew Tree Press. https://rowanmiddleton.mystrikingly.com/
Michael Miller’s poems have appeared in The Kenyon Review, The Sewanee Review, The Yale Review, and Raritan. His new book, War Zone, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press.
Casey Mills writes poems early in the morning while his daughters are still sleeping. His poetry was recently published in Ekstasis.
Mark J. Mitchell has been a working poet for 50 years. He’s the author of five full-length collections, and six chapbooks. His latest collection is Something To Be from Pski’s Porch Publishing. A novel that includes some poetry, A Book of Lost Songs is due out next Spring. He’s fond of baseball, Louis Aragon, Dante, and his wife, activist Joan Juster. He lives in San Francisco where he points out pretty things. https://www.mark-j-mitchell.square.site/
Tim Mitchell is a retired social work manager living in Dorset. He has had poems published in magazines in England and commended by editors of international journals. He has had poems used in three art exhibitions. and has been asked for poems for weddings and for a celebration of a life. He is preparing a collection, Edges, to be published through Amazon.
Rita Moe’s poetry has appeared in Water~Stone, Poet Lore, Mad Swirl, Slipstream, and other literary journals. She is the author of two poetry chapbooks, Sins & Disciplines and Findley Place; A Street, a Ballpark, a Neighborhood. She has two grown sons and lives with her husband in Roseville, Minnesota.
Cecil Morris retired after 37 years of teaching high school English, and now he tries writing himself what he spent so many years teaching others to understand and (maybe) enjoy. He has had a handful of poems appearing or forthcoming in Cimarron Review, Hole in the Head Review, New Verse News, Rust + Moth, Sugar House Review, Willawaw Journal, and other literary magazines.
Who Understands All the Mysteries of Life
Clare Morris is a performance poet, writer and reviewer, based in Devon, UK. Her most recent collection is Devon Maid Walking (Jawbone Collective, 2023). She is the editor of The Jawbone Journal (launch date, May, 2025).
The Rites of Saints and Sparrows
Karen McAferty Morris writes about nature and ordinary people. Her poetry, recognized for its “appeal to the senses, the intellect, and the imagination,” has appeared in Persimmon Tree, Sisyphus, The Louisville Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Black Fox Literary Journal, and Lyric Magazine. Her collections Elemental (2018), Confluence (2020), and Significance (2022) are national prize winners. She is lucky enough to live on Perdido Bay in the Florida panhandle.
Joel Moskowitz, an artist and retired picture framer, is writing poems about living in a house at the edge of a forest in Massachusetts. His poems have appeared in The Comstock Review, Ibbetson Street Press, J Journal, Midstream, Naugatuck River Review, The Healing Muse, MuddyRiverPoetryReview.com, BostonPoetryMagazine.com, AmethystMagazine.org and Soul-Lit.com. He is a First Prize winner of the Poetry Society of New Hampshire National Contest.
Steve Mueske is a music producer and the author of A Mnemonic for Desire and Slower than Stars. His poems have appeared in The Iowa Review, The Massachusetts Review, Water~Stone Review, Cream City Review, The Pinch Journal, The Normal School, Jet Fuel Review, Thrush, Verse Daily, and elsewhere.
Alone on the Roof Thinking of Charles Wright
JBMulligan has published more than 1100 poems and stories in various magazines, and has published two chapbooks: The Stations of the Cross and This Way To Egress, as well as 2 e-books: The City of Now and Then, and A Book of Psalms (a loose translation), plus appearances in more than a dozen anthologies.
Originally from the Highlands of Scotland, Jill Munro has lived and worked in Strasbourg, France, for over thirty years. She studied at St Andrews and then Edinburgh University, publishing her thesis on a study in the poetic imagery of the Song of Songs with the Sheffield Academic Press (1995). She wrote extensively in a professional capacity for a funding agency on the frontier of the life sciences, and during this time also translated numerous academic articles from French into English. She has been writing poetry for a number of years, exploring the themes of memory, landscape, loss and displacement.
Abigail Myers writes poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction on Long Island, New York. Recent work appears with HAD, Discretionary Love, Tangled Locks, Farewell Transmission, Stanchion, Major 7th, and The Dodge, among other publications, and is forthcoming from JMWW and Atlas and Alice. Find her at abigailmyers.com and on Twitter/Bluesky @abigailmyers.
Ann Nadge lives in Adelaide, South Australia. Her career as an Educator involved teaching and consulting in Sydney and Adelaide, in secondary and tertiary settings and briefly as a Research Associate in the School of Education, University of Cambridge. Ann has published five books of poems and edited two for Australia’s Ginninderra Poets. Her work has been included in several anthologies. Although she cannot read or play music, Ann has collaborated with composers in Adelaide and Amsterdam to create new works, including several hymns. She currently enjoys semi-retirement and is active in the Anglican Diocese of Adelaide.
Heidi Naylor writes and teaches in Idaho. Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Jewish Journal, Portland(magazine of the University of Portland), Exponent II, the Idaho Review, New Letters, Dialogue, Eclectica, and other magazines. She has a recent fellowship in literature with the Idaho Commission on the Arts and served as Writer (Poet) in Residence at the Marian Pritchett School. Find her at heidnaylor.net.
Patricia Nelson has worked with the “Activist” group of poets in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her newest book, Monster Monologues, is due out in 2024 from Fernwood Press.
Katherine Orfinger is a writer, artist, and MFA candidate at Rosemont College. She holds a BA in English from Stetson University. Katherine’s work has appeared in Beyond Queer Words, Outrageous Fortune, You Might Need to Hear This, Touchstone, Aeolus, and others. Katherine draws inspiration from her Floridian hometown and Jewish faith. She currently resides in Pennsylvania.
Dominic Palmer grew up near Oxford, studied in Cambridge, and now lives in Manchester with his wife and son. His poetry has been published by or is forthcoming in several journals, including Blue Unicorn, Amethyst Review, and EGG+FROG. Having worked as an English teacher and a musician, he is soon to begin training for ordination in the Church of England.
Ioanna Panagiotopoulos is a Greek-Australian writer, actor and priest. She spent her youth writing poetry before training in speech and acting at The School of the Living Word. In 2017 she was ordained as a priest in The Christian Community. She lives and works in Canberra, Australia.
Diane Perazzo is a poet, legacy writing facilitator and eco witch in the Reclaiming tradition. She is a co-creator of the art and poetry exhibit Sowing the Future: Women Farmers +EcoAgriculture and author of the chapbook Six Poems for Healing (illustrated by the late amara hollowbones) and the children’s novel The Secret in the Ravine (available on Amazon). Her poetry has been published in earth-based spirituality and ecology-focused online and print publications.
Darrell Petska is a retired university engineering editor and two-time Pushcart Prize nominee. His poetry appears in Verse-Virtual, 3rd Wednesday Magazine, Midwest Zen, Soul-Lit, and widely elsewhere (conservancies.wordpress.com). Father of five and grandfather of seven, he lives near Madison, Wisconsin, with his wife of more than 50 years.
Dustin Pickering is founder of Transcendent Zero Press. He has contributed writing to Huffington Post, Los Angeles Review, The Statesman (India), Journal of Liberty and International Affairs, The Colorado Review, World Literature Today, and several other publications. He is author of numerous poetry collections and books including Salt and Sorrow. He placed in the top 100 for the erbacce prize in 2021 and 2023, and was a finalist in Adelaide Literary Journal’s first short fiction contest. He was longlisted for the Rahim Karim World Prize in 2022 and given the honor of Knight of World Peace by the World Institute for Peace that same year. He hosts the popular interview series World Inkers Network on YouTube and co-founded World Inkers Printing and Publishing.
Larry Pike’s poetry has appeared in a variety of literary journals, including Fathom Magazine, St. Katherine Review, and twice previously in Amethyst Review. Finishing Line Press published his collection Even in the Slums of Providence (October 2021). He lives with his wife, Carol, in Glasgow, Kentucky.
Matthew Pillar is a poet and teacher based in Melbourne, Australia. In 2013, he received the Young Australian Christian Writer of the Year Award for his unpublished manuscript Imperceptible Arms: A Memoir in Poems. He has published three books of poetry, including The Swelling Year: Poems for Holy and Ordinary Days, and has had poetry published in Soul Tread, Proost Poets and Poems for Ephesians.
House of 49 Doors by Laurie Klein
Cynthia Pitman from Orlando, Florida is the author of three poetry collections: The White Room, Blood Orange, and Breathe (Aldrich Press, Kelsay Books). Her work has been published in Vita Brevis anthologies Pain and Renewal, Brought to Sight & Swept Away, Nothing Divine Dies, What is All This Sweet Work?, in journals Amethyst Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Third Wednesday (One Sentence Poem finalist), Saw Palm: Florida Literature and Art (Pushcart Prize fiction nominee), Red Fez (Story of the Week) and others.
Aaron Poochigian earned a PhD in Classics from the University of Minnesota and an MFA in Poetry from Columbia University. His latest collection of poetry, American Divine, the winner of the Richard Wilbur Award, came out in 2021. He has published numerous books and translations with such presses as Penguin Classics and W.W. Norton. His work has appeared in such publications as Best American Poetry, The Paris Review and POETRY.
Andrea Potos is the author of seven full-length collections of poetry, most recently Her Joy Becomes (Fernwood Press), Marrow of Summer, and Mothershell, both from Kelsay Books. Andrea’s work appears widely in print and online, most recently in The Sun, Spiritus, Portage Magazine, Poetry East, Potomac Review, Poem, and How to Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope (Storey Publishing). She lives in Madison, Wisconsin.
Martin Potter (https://martinpotterpoet.home.blog) is a British-Colombian poet and academic, based in Edinburgh, and his poems have appeared in Acumen, The French Literary Review, Eborakon, Ink Sweat & Tears, The Poetry Village, and other journals as well as in Black Bough anthologies. His pamphlet In the Particular was published in 2017.
Ann Power is a retired faculty member from The University of Alabama. She enjoys writing historical sketches as well as poems based in the kingdoms of magical realism. Her work has appeared in: Spillway, Gargoyle Magazine, The Birmingham Poetry Review, Dappled Things, The Copperfield Review, The Ekphrastic Review, The Loch Raven Review, Halfway Down the Stairs, Amethyst Review, and other publications. She was nominated for Best of the Net in Poetry for her poem, “Ice Palace.”
Diana Raab, MFA, PhD, is a poet, memoirist, blogger, speaker, and award-winning author of thirteen books. Her work has been published and anthologized world-wide. She blogs for Psychology Today, The Wisdom Daily, Thrive Global and is a guest blogger for many others. Her latest book is, An Imaginary Affair: Poems Whispered to Neruda (Finishing Line Press, 2022). Visit her at: dianaraab.com.
David Radavich has published a variety of poetry, drama, and essays, including two epics, America Bound and America Abroad, as well as Middle-East Mezze and The Countries We Live In. His plays have been performed across the U.S. and in Europe. His latest book is Here’s Plenty (Cervena Barva, 2023).
Bonnie Raphael is an artist and writer living in Thousand Oaks, California. She holds a master’s degree in art from California State University, Northridge, and a bachelor’s from Immaculate Heart College, formerly in Hollywood California – now closed, but very much alive in spirit. She is semi-retired from teaching, This is her first published poem. A lifelong Buddhist, she is grateful to Amethyst Review for the opportunity to share her work.
Objects are Farther Away Than They Appear
Patrick T. Reardon, a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee, was a newspaper reporter with the Chicago Tribune for 32 years. He is the author of six poetry collections including Salt of the Earth: Doubts and Faith Puddin’: The Autobiography of a Baby, A Memoir in Prose Poems. His poetry has appeared in America, Rhino, After Hours, Heart of Flesh, Autumn Sky, Silver Birch, Burningword Literary Journal, The Write Launch, Poetry East, The Galway Review, Under a Warm Green Linden and many other journals. His history book The Loop: The “L” Tracks That Shaped and Saved Chicago was published in 2020 by Southern Illinois University Press.
Sarah Reardon is a wife, mother, and former teacher. Her writing has appeared in Plough, Ekstasis Review, Reformed Journal, and elsewhere.
F.W. “Skip” Renker’s poems have appeared in Awakenings Review, Leaping Clear, Presence, and many other publications, as well as the Atlanta Review and Passages Northanthologies. His books are Sifting the Visible (Mayapple Press), Bearing the Cast (Saint Julian Press), and A Patient Hunger (Atmosphere Press). Skip’s a graduate of Notre Dame and Duke, and has an MFA from Seattle Pacific University.
Royal Rhodes taught for almost forty years courses on the history of Christianity at Kenyon College. His poems have been published by Amethyst Review, Ekstasis Poetry, The Heart of Flesh, Ekphrastic Review, and The Montreal Review, among others. He is currently working on a volume of collected poems.
Michael Ricketti was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Lenapehoking. He lives in Nicosia, Cyprus where he works as a university lecturer and serves at Kuruçeşme Projekt – a community yoga, meditation, education, and art initiative founded with Sevdiye Ricketti. His work has been published with Welcomat, Vallum, Enclave, Bluepepper, New Note Poetry, Instant Noodles, and Bodega. His novella ‘Yayla’ was shortlisted for the First Series Award by Mid-List Press.
Tyler Rogness is learning to live on purpose, and to sink into the small moments that fill a life. He loves deep words, old books, good stories, and his wonderful family who put up with his nonsense. His poetry has appeared in the Agape Review, The Habit Portfolio, and the Amethyst Review. More of his work can be found at awakingdragons.com.
William Ross is a Canadian writer and visual artist living in Toronto. His poems have appeared in Rattle, The New Quarterly, Humana Obscura, New Note Poetry, Cathexis Northwest Press, Topical Poetry, Heavy Feather Review,*82 Review, and Alluvium. Recent work is forthcoming in Bindweed Magazine and Anti-Heroin Chic.
Russell Rowland writes from New Hampshire’s Lakes Region, where he has judged high-school Poetry Out Loud competitions. His work appears in Except for Love: New England Poets Inspired by Donald Hall (Encircle Publications), and Covid Spring, Vol. 2 (Hobblebush Books). His latest poetry book, Magnificat, is available from Encircle Publications.
Sayantani Roy’s writing straddles both India and the U.S., and she calls both places home. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Cold Lake Anthology, Gone Lawn, Heavy Feather Review, Imposter Poetry Journal, Pen to Print, The Hooghly Review, The Seattle Times, and Wordgathering. She dreams of teaching poetry to young children one day. Find her on Instagram @sayan_tani_r. https://www.instagram.com/sayan_tani_r
In retirement, Russell Rowland continues his work as a trail volunteer for the Lakes Region (NH) Conservation Trust. His poetry has appeared in over a hundred small journals. His most recent books, Wooden Nutmegs and Magnificat, are available from Encircle Publications.
Rachel Ann Russell is a working on a Masters at Wesley Theological Seminary, and besides poetry is also a biblical storyteller. She has been published most recently in Calla Press and Christian Courier. She loves reading, chocolate, and her family but not in that order.
The lightning-cracked pages of Ed Ruzicka’s third, full-length book of poems, Squalls (Kelsay Books), was released in March. Ed’s poems have appeared in the Atlanta Review, the Chicago Literary Review, Rattle, Canaryand many other literary publications. Ed, who is also the president of the Poetry Society of Louisiana, lives with his wife, Renee, in Baton Rouge.
Bradley Samore has worked as an editor, writing consultant, English teacher, creative writing teacher, basketball coach, and family support facilitator. His writing has appeared in The Florida Review, Carve, The Dewdrop, and other publications. He is a winner of the Creative Writing Ink Poetry Prize. Website: www.BradleySamore.com
Richard Schiffman is an environmental reporter, poet and author of two biographies. His poems have appeared on the BBC, in Rattle, the New Ohio Review, the Christian Science Monitor, the New York Times, Writer’s Almanac, This American Life in Poetry, Verse Daily and other publications. His first poetry collection What the Dust Doesn’t Know was published in 2017 by Salmon Poetry.
Nathaniel A. Schmidt is an ordained minister in the Christian Reformed Church and serves as a hospice chaplain. He holds degrees from Calvin Theological Seminary, Calvin University, and the University of Illinois Springfield. His newest collection of poems, Transfiguring, is available from Wipf & Stock, as is his first collection, An Evensong. He lives with his librarian wife, Lydia, and their daughter in southwest Michigan, meaning life is a perpetual story time.
“If your child asks for a fish, do you give them a snake?”
Sonya Schneider is a playwright and poet living in Seattle, WA. Her poetry can be found or is forthcoming in 3Elements, ONE ART, Naugatuck River Review, Catamaran, SWWIM, West Trestle Review, Eunoia Review and MER VOX, among others. She was a finalist for the 2022 New Letters Patricia Cleary Miller Award for Poetry and her micro chapbook, Hunger, was shortlisted for Harbor Review’s 2023 Jewish Women’s Prize. She is a graduate of Stanford University and Pacific University’s MFA in Poetry.
Jodi Schott lives near Lake Ontario in Rochester, New York. Her most recent poems are published in her chapbook, Sinking in the Sky Water. She is Director of Mission & Ministry at The Aquinas Institute of Rochester, where she has the privilege to guide students and faculty into a deeper relationship with God. She enjoys spending time with her husband, three children, and dog.
The Walk Home from the Lake Shore
Dean Schreck is a retired and relocated Long Islander who has been writing since the age of fourteen. His work has appeared over the years in Zephyr, Voices International, Literary Hatchet, New Myths, Penumbric, Magical Blend, Owlfight, WeirdBook, Penumbric, Eldritch Tales, Littoral, Space and Time, New Myths, Trembling with Fear…to name a few. He has also done work in Comic Books–Bloodscent (Comico 1988); Twilight Zone #7 (Now Comics 1992) and 2 Tales for Marvel/Epic Hellraiser series. Dean is a long time student of the spiritual and paranormal.
Kerstin Schulz is a German-American writer living in Portland, Oregon. Her work can be found in River Heron Review, HerStry, The Bookends Review, Raft, Relief, Montana Mouthful, and Cathexis Northwest Press, among other publications. She is also the winner of the PDXToday 2023 Poetry Contest.
Leonor Scliar-Cabral is Professor Emerita at the Federal University of Santa Catarina in Brazil. At the age of 94, she continues to work as a psycholinguist in the field of literacy training. Her poetry has appeared in Brazil in the following collections: Sonnets, Memories of the Sephardim, Of Erotic Senectitude, The Sun Fell on the Guaíba, Consecration of the Alphabet, and José. A good number of poems taken from her collection Consecration of the Alphabet have appeared in literary magazines in the United States, such as Per Contra, Blue Unicorn, Home Planet News, Measure, and Poetica Magazine. A bilingual presentation of that book will be published next yearby Ben Yehuda Press in the United States.
Sanjeev Sethi has authored seven books of poetry. His latest is Wrappings in Bespoke (The Hedgehog Poetry Press, UK, August 2022). He has been published in over thirty countries. His poems have found a home in more than 400 journals, anthologies, and online literary venues. He edited Dreich Planet #1, an anthology of Indian poets for Hybriddreich, Scotland, in December 2022. He is the recipient of the Ethos Literary Award 2022. He is the joint winner of the Full Fat Collection Competition-Deux, organized by Hedgehog Poetry Press, UK. In 2023, he won the First Prize in a Poetry Competition by the prestigious National Defence Academy, Pune, during its 75th anniversary in the “family members category.” He lives in Mumbai, India. X/ Twitter @sanjeevpoems3 || Instagram sanjeevsethipoems
Rochelle Jewel Shapiro has published in the New York Times (Lives). Nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, her short stories and poetry have been published in The MacGuffin, Euphony, the Iowa Review, and many more. Her poetry collection, Death, Please Wait was published by Turtle Box Press in 2023. She teaches writing at UCLA Extension. http://rochellejshapiro.com @rjshapiro
An Angel Appeared to Rilke in the Garden
Bracha K. Sharp has been published in the American Poetry Review, the Birmingham Arts Journal, ONE ART: a journal of poetry (where she was a nominee for Orison Books’ Best Spiritual Literature, Wild Roof Journal, The Closed Eye Open, and the Thimble Literary Magazine, among others. She placed first in the national Hackney Literary Awards and she was a finalist in the New Millennium Writings Poetry Awards. As her writing notebooks seem to end up finding their way into different rooms, she is always finding both old pieces to revisit and new inspirations to work with. She is a current reader for the Baltimore Review. www.brachaksharp.com
Lesley Sharpe teaches literature and creative writing, and enjoys living by the river which is always changing. Her poems, reviews and essays have appeared in several journals and anthologies, most recently Aesthetica, Tears in the Fence and The Alchemy Spoon, Finished Creatures and Spelt. Her poems have also been short/long-listed, including for The London Magazine, Rialto, Fish, Paper Swans Pamphlet, Primers, Cinnamon Debut Collection, Live Canon and Bridport Prizes.
at night she slips out of her stone dress
Mary Ellen Shaughan is a native Iowan who now lives in Western Massachusetts. Her poetry has appeared in numerous journals and magazines. Her first volume of poetry, Home Grown, is available on Amazon.
Susan Shea is a retired school psychologist who was raised in New York City, and is now living in a forest in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. Since she has returned to writing poetry this year, her poems have been accepted in a few dozen publications, including Ekstasis, Across the Margin, Feminine Collective, Persimmon Tree Literary Magazine, Military Experience and the Arts, and the Avalon Literary Review.
Grant Shimmin is a South African-born poet resident in New Zealand since 2001. He counts humanity, the natural world, and the relationship between them as poetic passions. He has work published/forthcoming at Roi Faineant Press, Does it Have Pockets, The Hooghly Review, underscore_magazine, Dreich and elsewhere.
J E Shipley is a new writer from the East Midlands of England. She is working on her first poetry collection. Contact: js.bookbench@gmail.com
Deborah J. Shore has spent most of her life housebound or bedridden with sudden onset severe ME/CFS. This neuroimmune illness has made engagement with and composition of literature costly and, during long seasons, impossible. She has won poetry competitions at the Anglican Theological Review and the Alsop Review. Her most recent or forthcoming publications include THINK, Thimble Lit, Ekstasis, Reformed Journal, The Orchards Poetry Journal, Christian Century, Relief Journal, and the Sejong Cultural Society.
Jennifer Skogen is the author of the young adult series, The Haunting of Grey Hills, and her work has recently been featured in Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet and Green Ink Poetry. Jennifer lives near Seattle, Washington, and goes hiking in beautiful places whenever it isn’t raining (and often when it is).
Michael Dwayne Smith haunts many literary houses, including The Cortland Review, Gargoyle, Monkeybicycle, Sheila-Na-Gig, ONE ART, Third Wednesday, Heron Tree, and Heavy Feather Review. Author of three books, and a multiple-time Pushcart Prize/Best of the Net nominee, he lives near a Mojave Desert ghost town with his family and rescued horses. His latest collection goes from apparition to publication early 2024.
Thomas R. Smith is a poet, editor, essayist and teacher living in western Wisconsin. His most recent books are Medicine Year (poetry) and Poetry on the Side of Nature: Writing the Nature Poem as an Act of Survival (prose). His poems and essays can be found at www.thomasrsmithpoet.com.
Kristy Snedden is a trauma psychotherapist. Her poetry appears in various on-line and print journals and anthologies, including Snapdragon, CV2, and storySouth. Among other honors, her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She serves as the Book Review Editor for Anti-Heroin Chic. She loves hiking near her home in the foothills of Appalachia and listening to her husband and dogs tell tall stories. She believes deeply in the power of poetry to heal. To learn more about her, follow her on Instagram at kristy_snedden_poetry.
Cheryl Snell’s books include several poetry collections and the novels of her Bombay Trilogy. Most recently her writing has appeared in Does It Have Pockets? Switch, Gone Lawn, Your Impossible Voice, Necessary Fiction, Pure Slush, and other journals. A classical pianist, she lives in Maryland with her husband, a mathematical engineer.
Judith Sornberger’s poetry chapbook The Book of Muses came out in July 2023 from Finishing Line Press. She is the author of four full-length poetry collections: Angel Chimes: Poems of Advent and Christmas (Shanti Arts), I Call to You from Time (Wipf & Stock), Practicing the World (CavanKerry), and Open Heart (Calyx Books)—and five other chapbooks. Her prose memoir The Accidental Pilgrim: Finding God and His Mother in Tuscany is from Shanti Arts. She is a professor emerita of Mansfield University of Pennsylvania where she taught in the English Department and founded the Women’s Studies Program. She lives on the side of a mountain outside Wellsboro Pennsylvania.
The Divine Hours at Shotpouch Creek with Hildegard von Bingen
Samuel Louis Spencer is a poet and journalist based in Tampa, Florida. His work has appeared in The Decadent Review, Scapegoat Magazine, Tokyo Poetry Journal, Inlandia, Third Wednesday, Barzakh Magazine, and others. Spencer grew up in Malawi to missionary parents before attending boarding school in Kenya. He earned his MFA from Liberty University and is passionate about traveling and the outdoors. Currently, he writes for The Travel, Curated, Outdoor Master, and Snowboarding Days. In addition to words, Spencer is a fervent tennis player and snowboarder.
Carol Stanton lives in Pittsburgh PA. She is a member of the Mad Women in the Attic program at Carlow University. Her poems have been published in Voices from the Attic, Paterson Literary Review, and other journals. She is a retired psychotherapist and taught writing and spiritually oriented courses at the University of San Francisco for many years.
Originally from Atlanta, Georgia, Helen Steenhuis has been living near Aix-en-Provence since 1989 working as an English language teacher. Her poems have appeared in The French Literary Review, Equinox: A Poetry Journal,The Poetry Library: Southbank Centre, London, and Cumberland River Review.
Ashley Steineger is a holistic psychologist who believes poetry is the language of healing. She is the author of The Poetry Therapy Workbook(2023), and her poetry has appeared in The Night Heron Barks, Apricity Press, The Lumiere Review, and Palette Poetry, among others. She is a Pushcart Prize and Best of Net nominee, and currently lives and writes out of Raleigh, NC, where she enjoys forest bathing, collecting tattoos, and untranslatable words.
Pam Stocker has facilitated local poetry and writing groups for many years, performs at open mikes and leads creative retreats. She loves collaboration and community, and gets pleasure from facilitating the writing of others, whether they consider themselves creative or not. She worked as an English teacher and retrained as a Gestalt counsellor. Now she has more time, she is writing and arting, sailing, cycling, walking and doing ballet. Faith, for her in a Christian tradition, brings with it the potential for growth and depth, making way always for both ambiguity and trust.
Annie Powell Stone (she/her) likes sad songs and funny movies. Her poetry has been nominated for The Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Her chapbook Hampden Wildlife: Reflections on the Nature of a Baltimore City Neighborhood was published by Bottlecap Press; she has been featured in numerous literary journals. Annie has a Master’s in Education from the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor’s in English from the University of Maryland. She lives on the ancestral land of the Piscataway people with her husband and two kiddos in Baltimore City, MD. Read more: anniepowellstone.com
Tim Suermondt’s sixth full-length book of poems A Doughnut And The Great Beauty Of The World came out in 2023 from MadHat Press. He has published in Poetry, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, The Georgia Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Stand Magazine, Smartish Pace, The Fortnightly Review, Poet Lore and Plume, among many others. He lives in Cambridge (MA) with his wife, the poet Pui Ying Wong.
Susan Swartwout’s books are Odd Beauty, Strange Fruit: Poems, 2 poetry chapbooks, 12 anthologies, and a publishing textbook. Her work has been awarded a Rona Jaffe Foundation Award, St. Louis Poetry Centre’s Hanks Award, and nominated for seven Pushcart Prizes. She taught creative writing and small-press publishing, and founded a university press. “Retired,” she copyedits as a freelancer and currently serves as editor of Delta Poetry Review.
Wally Swist’s books include Huang Po and the Dimensions of Love(Southern Illinois University Press, 2012), selected by Yusef Komunyakaa for the 2011 Crab Orchard Open Poetry Competition, and A Bird Who Seems to Know Me: Poems Regarding Birds and Nature, winner of the 2018 Ex Ophidia Poetry Prize. Recent essays, poems, and translations have appeared in Asymptote (Taiwan), Chicago Quarterly Review, Commonweal, The Comstock Review, New World Writing, Pensive: A Journal of Global Spirituality & the Arts, Today’s American Catholic, and Poetry London. Shanti Arts published his translation of L’Allegria, Giuseppe Ungaretti’s first iconic book, in August 2023.
Marlene M. Tartaglione is an artist whose creativity manifests poetry, children’s literature, the visual arts. She was born & raised in New York City. Ms. Tartaglione believes art & compassionate action are one, a powerful tool for positive social change: Her work gives voice to social justice, spiritual transcendence & environmental issues. Ms. Tartaglione’s writing has appeared in literary presses both nationally & abroad (i.e. The Hong Kong Review, Canada’s Dreamers Creative Writing, the Wind Journal, Cholla Needles, & The Chronogram; also, in publications of New York University & The Cooper Union, among others).Ms. Tartaglione has been awarded four poetry prizes, her work presented at venues such as the Brooklyn Museum, New York Cultural Center, New Federal Theater, The Society for Ethical Culture, as well as the New York Book Fair. Both Ms. Tartaglione’s writing & artwork are cited in archives at the University of Buffalo in Buffalo, New York; her poetry & children’s stories, profiled in lectures at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York City. Published in Hatch-Billops’ Black History annual, Artist & Influence, Ms. Tartaglione’s poems are now part of their permanent collection endowed to Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Her M.B.A. studies at NYU focused largely on the literature of Early Childhood as well as documentary film. Ms. Tartaglione also holds a B.F. A. from the Cooper Union, where she studied poetry with eminent scholar, poet & educator, Dr. Brian Swann.
Yermiyahu Ahron Taub is a poet, writer, and translator of Yiddish literature. He is the author of two books of fiction and six volumes of poetry, including A Mouse Among Tottering Skyscrapers: Selected Yiddish Poems (2017). His recent translations from the Yiddish include Dineh: An Autobiographical Novel (2022) by Ida Maze and Blessed Hands: Stories (2023) by Frume Halpern. Please visit his website.
Larry D. Thomas served as the 2008 Texas Poet Laureate and is a member of the Texas Institute of Letters. He has published several collections of poetry, including As If Light Actually Matters: New & Selected Poems (Texas A&M University Press 2015). Journals in which his poetry has been published include The Windhover, Christian Science Monitor, Southwest Review, Poet Lore, and Relief: A Journal of Art and Faith.
Jeffrey Thompson was raised in Fargo, North Dakota, before it became a watchword for cool, and educated at the University of Iowa and Cornell Law School. He lives in Phoenix, Arizona, where he practices public interest law. His work has appeared or will appear in journals including North Dakota Quarterly, The Main Street Rag, Hole in the Head Review, The Tusculum Review, ONE ART, Maudlin House, Trampoline, Funicular, New World Writing Quarterly, and The Dodge His hobbies include reading, hiking, photography, listening to Leonard Cohen, and doom-scrolling the ruins of Twitter.
Jonathan Thorndike is an amateur Irish fiddle player, grandfather, lover of dogs, bicycle mechanic, and English professor in Nashville, Tennessee. His poetry previously appeared in Albany Review, Bellingham Review, Panoply, Piedmont Literary Review, Red Cedar Review, Slipstream, South Florida Poetry Review, Sunrust, The Windless Orchard, and Zone 3.
Ahrend Torrey is the author of This Moment (Pinyon Publishing, 2024), If it’s darkness we’re having, let it be extravagant: The Jane Kenyon Erasure Poems (Pinyon Publishing, 2024), For What Are the Blossoms Reaching? (Limited Artist’s Edition, American Academy of Bookbinding, 2023), Ripples (Pinyon Publishing, 2023), Bird City, American Eye (Pinyon Publishing, 2022), and Small Blue Harbor (Poetry Box Select, 2019). His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Denver Quarterly, Slippery Elm Literary Journal, storySouth, The Greensboro Review, The Westchester Review, Welter, and West Trade Review, among others. He lives in Chicago with his husband, Jonathan, their two rat terriers, Dichter and Dova, and Purl, their cat.
Martin Towers is a support worker in Aberystwyth, Wales. Samples of his spoken word poetry are used in music by the producer Meanderman. Search: ‘Meanderman (feat. Jimmy Badger)’.
Author of the debut novel Twelfth House, E.C. Traganas has published in The San Antonio Review, The Society of Classical Poets, The Brussels Review, The Penwood Review, Dark Winter Literary Magazine, Agape Review, Wilderness House Literary Review, Story Sanctum, Confetti Magazine and countless other journals. Hailed as ‘an artfully created masterpiece’ and a ‘must-read’ by The US Review of Books, her work of haiku & short poetry, Shaded Pergola, features her original illustrations. A Juilliard trained concert pianist & composer by profession, E.C. Traganas is the founder/director of Woodside Writers, a literary forum based in New York City. www.elenitraganas.com
Mark James Trisko has been writing poetry for his entire life, but after retiring recently, he heard his muses yelling loudly in the night begging him to let their voices be heard. His work is scheduled to appear in Valiant Scribe Literary Journal. He currently lives in Minnesota, with his beautiful spouse of 47 years, four wonderful children and eight above-normal grandchildren.
Inspired while teaching Christian attitudes to animals and the environment in Religious Studies, Barbara Usher now cares for retired ewes who bring their lambs at foot, and ex-commercial hens on her 8 acre animal sanctuary, Noah’s Arcs. Her poetry has been published in Borderlands: an Anthology, Amethyst Review, Dreich, Green Ink Poetry, Last Leaves, Last Stanza, Liennekjournal, and in the Amethyst Press anthology Thin Places & Sacred Spaces. Her work appeared on the Resilience soundscape 2022 for Live Borders, with background accompaniment of her late pigs. She writes on Celtic saints, farmed animals, and her local area.
Thinking of St Aebbe at a Bernat Klein design workshop
Dr Laura Varnam is the Lecturer in Old and Middle English Literature at University College, Oxford. Her poetry is inspired by the medieval texts that she teaches and her poems have been published in journals including Bad Lilies, Banshee Lit, Berlin Lit, and Wet Grain; the academic journal postmedieval with a creative-critical essay; and the anthologies Gods & Monsters: Mythological Poems (ed. Ana Sampson) and All Shall Be Well: A Poetry Anthology for Julian of Norwich (ed. Sarah Law). She is currently writing a book on modern adaptations of Margery Kempe’s life and Book.
White Things about Her on Every Side
Agnes Vojta grew up in Germany and now lives in Rolla, Missouri where she teaches physics at Missouri S&T and hikes the Ozarks. She is the author of Porous Land, The Eden of Perhaps, and A Coracle for Dreams (Spartan Press) and of a chapter in Wild Muse: Ozarks Nature Poetry (Cornerpost Press, 2022.) Her poems have appeared in a variety of magazines; you can read some of them on her website agnesvojta.com.
Bel Wallace is a carer who practises yoga and enjoys long walks. In a previous life she was a teacher. She started writing in earnest after walking 560 miles of a pilgrim route to Santiago de Compostela. Her writing has been short-listed in various competitions, including the 2022 Bridport Poetry Prize and published in Ink, Sweat and Tears, Raceme, Allegro, Lighthouse, Magma, Gutter, The Interpreter’s House, Under the Radar and Carmen et Error. She is trying to finish her first novel, but keeps getting distracted by poetry. Instagram @belwallace_writer
Pantoum of Pilgrims Who Walk Beyond Their Destination
Chris Wardle (Hamza) works at being happy and grateful, while writing with an eye for wonder, a taste for questions, and a sense of proximity to the Sacred. A relative newcomer to sharing his poetry, he has been published in: Blue Minaret, Pandemonium (2022); and Green Ink Poetry(2023).
Charles Weld’s poems have been collected in two chapbooks, Country I Would Settle In (Pudding House, 2004) and Who Cooks For You? (Kattywompus, 2012.) A full-length collection, Seringo, was published by Kelsay Books in 2023. A retired administrator for an agency serving youth with mental health challenges, Charles Weld lives in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York.
Sheila Wellehan’s poetry is featured in On the Seawall, Rust & Moth, Thimble Literary Magazine, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, Whale Road Review, and many other publications. She’s an assistant poetry editor for The Night Heron Barks and anassociate editor for Ran Off With the Star Bassoon. Sheila lives in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. You can read her work atwww.sheilawellehan.com .
Richard West was Regents’ Professor of Classics in a large public university and has published numerous books, articles, and poems under his own name and other pen names. He now lives with his wife Anna in the beautiful American Desert Southwest, where he enjoys cooking and attempting to add flavor to his poems.
Wendy Westley was a successful nurse, midwife and therapist for many years in the UK. She now writes short stories and poetry.
Renee Williams is a retired English instructor, who has written for Guitar Digest, Alien Buddha Press and Fevers of the Mind.
Mary Winslow has taught writing at colleges and universities throughout the US. Her poems have appeared in Sparks of Calliope, The Clayjar Review, The Road Not Taken, the Antigonish Review, The Avocet: Journal of Nature Poetry, and many other journals and magazines. She is the author of one chapbook, The Dungeness Crabs at Dusk, (Log Dog Press, 2017) and the editor of a full-length poetry collection, Dea Tacita, (Log Dog Press, 2017) written by poet Jeff Stier. She lives on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State.
Darlene L Witte is a former Professor of Education on the faculty of Northern Vermont University from 1993 to 2014. Born and educated in Alberta, Canada, she always meant to become a poet. Her thanks go to Stephen Kastner at www.greenmountainwriters.com for envisioning a vibrant community of writers. http://www.darlenewitte.com
Finlay Worrallo is a queer cross-arts writer studying Modern Languages at Newcastle University. He writes poetry, prose and scripts, and his work is published in VIBE, Queerlings, 14, the Braag’s speculative fiction chapbook Unfurl: Portrait of Another World, and the Emma Press’ anthology Dragons of the Prime: Poems about Dinosaurs.
Glenn Wright is a retired teacher living in Anchorage, Alaska with his wife, Dorothy, and their dog, Bethany. He writes poetry in order to challenge what angers him, to ponder what puzzles him, and to celebrate what delights him.
Moments of Being – a poem by Glenn Wright
Michael T. Young’s third full-length collection, The Infinite Doctrine of Water, was longlisted for the Julie Suk Award. His previous collections are The Beautiful Moment of Being Lost and Transcriptions of Daylight. He received a Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. His chapbook, Living in the Counterpoint, received the Jean Pedrick Chapbook Award. His poetry has been featured on Verse Daily and The Writer’s Almanac. It has also appeared in numerous journals including Pinyon, Talking River Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review and Vox Populi.
Lori Zavada writes poetry and prose that reveals a deep respect for nature and the human condition. Steeped in insight and imagery, her poems can be found in Of Poets and Poetry, Operelle Poetry Collection, Emerald Coast Review, WayWords,Nobis II, and her chapbook First Flight. Lori lives in Northwest Florida in a community of talented supportive writers, who work together to achieve their writing goals.
Susan Zimmerman’s chapbook, Nothing is Lost, was published by Caitlin Press in 1980. Her poems have more recently appeared or are forthcoming in literary journals such as Prairie Fire, Gyroscope Review, The Maynard, and SWWIM Every Day. A poem of hers is also included in the new anthology The Path to Kindness: Poems of Connection and Joy, edited by James Crews.
Amethyst Review 