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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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. Doubts creep in like a vine
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).
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).
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.
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/
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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).
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
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.
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.
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
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.
On the Edge – a poem by John Hopkins
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.
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
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.
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”.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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).
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.
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
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.
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.
Casey Mills writes poems early in the morning while his daughters are still sleeping. His poetry was recently published in Ekstasis.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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
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
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
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.
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.
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.
Samuel Louis Spencer is an American journalist and poet based out of Tampa, Florida. An avid traveler and former missionary child, Spencer loves pushing his limits of prosody and writing on the human psyche. His faith resides in every aspect of his identity as a person. When he is not writing, Spencer enjoys snowboarding and spending time with his family.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)’.
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
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).
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
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.
Amethyst Review 