Luther Allen writes poems from his mostly unmanaged 10 acres of mountainside near Bellingham, Washington. His academic work centered primarily on biology and geography; he is a retired building designer. He has published two volumes of poetry: The View from Lummi Island and A Spiritual Thread (see https://othermindpress.wordpress.com). His work is included in numerous journals and anthologies. He views writing as his spiritual practice.
Cit Ananda’s poetry is inspired by direct experience, captured in moments between perception when the mind falls quiet and deep silence shares an offering that touches the mystery of life. She will tell you she catches poetry on the winds of the universe. She has had work published or forthcoming in The Mountain Path, Tiferet Journal, Offerings: A Spiritual Poetry Anthology, El Portal, Medicine and Meaning, and Tiny Seed Journal. She is also the author of When Silence Speaks: Messages from the Heart, a full-length poetry book. Explore more at https://www.beingcitananda.com/publications.
Christine Andersen is a retired dyslexia specialist. She has published over 140 poems and is a 2025 Pushcart nominee. In 2025, she won the Jonathan Holden Poetry Chapbook Contest for To Maggie Wherever You’ve Gone, the Distinguished Favorite of the NYC Big Book Award for grief and remembrance. She lives on a Connecticut farm with five hounds.
Lana Hechtman Ayers makes her home in an Oregon coastal town famous for its barking sea lions. As managing editor at three small presses, she has shepherded over a hundred thirty poetry collections into print. Her work appears in print and online journals such as Comstock Review, The London Reader, and Peregrine. Her most recent book, The Autobiography of Rain, is available from Fernwood Press. Visit her online at LanaAyers.com.
One of the winners in Ireland’s 2024 Fingal Poetry Festival Competition and in 2022’s Poetry on the Lake, Lizzie Ballagher focuses on landscapes, both psychological and natural. She was a Pushcart nominee in 2018. Having studied in England, Ireland, and the USA, she worked in education and publishing. Her poems have appeared in print and online in all corners of the English-speaking world. Find her blog at https://lizzieballagherpoetry.wordpress.com/
Sam Barbee‘s most-recent collection is titled Apertures of Voluptuous Force (2022, Redhawk Publishing). Three previous collections include 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 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, Verse Virtual, Grand Little Things, and Medusa’s Kitchen; and is a two-time Pushcart nominee.
Shalmi Barman is a literary scholar, an editor, and a Pushcart-nominated poet. Originally from Calcutta, India, she earned a PhD in English from the University of Virginia after writing a dissertation on class and labor in Victorian fiction. Her poetry has been featured in EcoTheo Review, Naugatuck River Review, New Verse Review, Boudin, Rat’s Ass Review, Blue Unicorn, and elsewhere.
Kimberly Beck is a poet from Washington State. She can often be found at a local therapy ranch, caring for a very special herd of Norwegian Fjord Horses. Her work has appeared in Solid Food Press, Ekstasis Magazine, The Penwood Review, Clayjar Review, and more. She is also the author of a poetry collection called Chiaroscuro.
Naomi Bindman’s poetry and prose has appeared in magazines, literary journals, anthologies, and on podcasts. They won Dogwood Journal’s Creative Nonfiction Award, and received funds from the Vermont Arts Council and Vermont Humanities Council. Naomi is on the faculty of the Vermont State Colleges. Her memoir, You’re the Words I Sing, the story of Naomi’s journey back to life performing the songs of her daughter Ellen, is currently on submission with major publishers, and a film based on the memoir is in active development with a leading Hollywood story development company.
Amrita Skye Blaine develops themes of impermanence, disability, and awakening. In 2003, she received an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University, and in 2024, a PocketMFA in poetry. Two collections came out last spring, every riven thing from Finishing Line Press, and strange grace–the ending season from Berkana Publications. She has been published in fourteen poetry anthologies, numerous literary magazines, and is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee.
Ann Bodling is a gardener and spiritual director and writer who readily experiences God’s sacred presence in the land and its plants and creatures. She lives in the eastern United States with her husband, three goats, seven hens and the many wild ones who come to the two acres she is restoring for them.
Joe Carosella believes that Every Day Is a Beautiful Day. He hikes avidly, and loves nature, reading, ice cream, travel, and language(s). He writes, and spends time with family. His first book is Making Friends with God: A Year of Dialogues (Amazon KDP, 2024). Rabbit Tracks: The Poetry of Nature (Shanti Arts, 2025) is his second book. Joe’s poems have appeared in The Soliloquist, Amethyst Review, Adirondac, and Adirondack Almanack. He lives in Scotia, NY with his wife, Diury Alvarado.
S. D. Carpenter was born and raised on the Llano Estacado in Texas. She received a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Texas Tech University and an MFA in Poetry from the University of Michigan’s Helen Zell Writers’ Program. She currently works as an assistant director at a research data archive for the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research. Her writing has appeared in Pleiades.
Carolyn Chilton Casas is a practicing Reiki Master and teacher who explores ways of healing in the articles she writes for energy and wellness magazines in several countries. Her poetry has appeared in journals such as Braided Way, Grateful Living, and One Earth Sangha and in anthologies including The Wonder of Small Things: Poems of Peace and Renewal, Thin Spaces & Sacred Spaces, and Women in a Golden State. More of Carolyn’s work can be found on Instagram and Facebook, at www.carolynchiltoncasas.com, and in her newest collection of poetry Under the Same Sky.
Barbara Lydecker Crane has won the Kim Bridgford Memorial Sonnet Crown
Contest, the Helen Schaible Sonnet Contest, and was a Finalist for the
Rattle Poetry Prize. Her most recent book is You Will Remember Me
(Able Muse Press); Kelsay Books will soon publish her fifth
collection, Art & Soul.
Steven Croft lives on a barrier island off the coast of Georgia where his yard is lush with vegetation. His latest chapbook is At Home with the Dreamlike Earth (The Poetry Box, 2023). His work has appeared in Willawaw Journal, San Pedro River Review, So It Goes, Soul-Lit, Poets Reading the News, As It Ought To Be, and other places, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.
Patricia Daly is a USA Today bestselling author and writer of narrative nonfiction and spirituality. She has been published by Leaders Press, Story Circle Network, The Sun, Medium.com, and Reiki News Magazine. She indie-published The Women in His Life, Indelible Imprint, and The Deliberate Thinker, all available on Amazon. She is retired and lives in Largo, Florida, USA.
We Have Our Beginning in the Unbegun
Theodore Davis is a poet and musician from Des Moines, Iowa whose work explores how formal meter can swing. His poetry has appeared in Ink Lit Mag and The Limestone Review.
Jeannette de Beauvoir is a poet and novelist who lives and works at Land’s End—Provincetown, Massachusetts. Her work has appeared in the Emerson Review, the Looking Glass Review, Avalon Literary Review, the Blue Collar Review, Sheepshead Review, On Gaia Literary, Merganser Magazine, the Adirondack Review, Perception, and the New England Review, among others; she was featured in WCAI’s Poetry Sunday, and received the Mary Ballard Chapbook Prize and the Outermost Poetry Contest national award. More at jeannettedebeauvoir.com
Dolo Diaz is a scientist and poet with roots in Spain, currently residing in California. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in SLANT, The Summerset Review, ONE ART, Third Wednesday, Rogue Agent, among others. Her debut chapbook, Defiant Devotion, was published by Bottlecap Press. You can find some of her published work at: dolodiaz.com.
Anne Magee Dichele serves as Dean of the School of Education at Quinnipiac University. A life-long commitment to daily meditation and spiritual reflection has led to two poetry publications by Antrim House, Waiting for Wisdom and Ankle Deep and Drowning. Two of her poems were recently published in Thin Places & Sacred Spaces by Amethyst Press. Anne lives in New Haven, Connecticut with her dog Seamus Heaney. She is joyous that her wonderful children and granddaughter live nearby.
Haley DiRenzo is a Colorado writer and attorney specializing in eviction defense. Her work has appeared in Does it Have Pockets, Thimble, and Ink in Thirds, among others, and has been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. Outside of work and writing, you can find her browsing book stores, brewing tea, and watching movies and live performance in the theater. BlueSky: @haleydirenzo.bsky.social. Instagram: @haleydirenzo
How to Find Hope in the Apocalypse
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, the St. Austin Review, Amethyst Review, America Magazine, Pensive Journal, Forma Journal, and The Society of Classical Poets. He is a certified catechist with the Archdiocese of New York, a Benedictine oblate of St. Mary’s Abbey in Morristown, NJ, and editor of The Catholic Poetry Room.
Robert Estes, who lives in Somerville, Massachusetts, got his Physics PhD from the University of California at Berkeley and had some interesting times using physics, notably on a couple of US-Italian Space Shuttle missions. Since then, 50-odd of his poems have appeared in literary journals, including The Louisville Review, Gargoyle, Cola Literary Review, The Moth, Viridine Literary, Full House Literary, Masque & Spectacle, Constellations, Tipton Poetry Journal, Anacapa Review, The Madrigal, Book of Matches, and Sierra Nevada Review.
Jenna Wysong Filbrun is the author of the poetry collection, Running Toward Water, forthcoming from Shanti Arts in 2026. Her poems have appeared in Blue Heron Review, Deep Wild Journal, ONE ART, and other publications. She practices poetry to deepen her awareness of connection and loves to spend time at home and in the wild with her husband, Mike, and their dogs, Oliver and Lewis. Find her on Substack @jennawysongfilbrun or on Instagram @jwfilbrun.
Lisa Fishman is the author of eight books of poetry, a collection of short stories, and a forthcoming novel. Her most recent book is One Big Time (Wave Books, 2025); her debut novel, Write Back Now!, will be released on 1366 Books by Guernica Editions (Toronto) this May. Her book of stories, World Naked Bike Ride, was published in Nova Scotia by Gaspereau Press (2022) and shortlisted for a ReLit Award in Canada. Her work has appeared in Granta, Fairy Tale Review, jubliat, A Public Space and elsewhere. A dual US/Canadian, she divides her time between Eastern Canada and Wisconsin.
Pushcart Prize nominee Laura E. Garrard is also a CranioSacral Therapist on the Olympic Peninsula. Her poetry has appeared in journals like Bellevue Literary Review (Finalist), Amethyst Review, The Madrona Project, Silver Birch, Tidepools, and TulipTree Review (Merit Prize). Her chapbook, Paddling the Sweet Spot Between Life and Death, is forthcoming spring 2026 with Finishing Line Press. She writes a cancer poetry series, Poetry That Fits, on Penn Medicine’s OncoLink.org and holds a master’s in journalism with literary and women’s studies focuses. She worked for Country Music Foundation Press/Vanderbilt University Press, Thomas Nelson, and Rutledge Hill. LauraEGarrard.com
Kristi A.S. Gomez has a BA in Creative Writing from Pepperdine and an MA in Literature and Publishing from University of Galway, Ireland. She had poems published in both university publications and was a finalist in the Catholic Literary Arts 2024 Advent Poetry Contest. She has been a corporate-world and freelance editor and has taught poetry classes to homeschooled students.
Carole Greenfield grew up in Colombia and resides in New England, where she teaches multilingual learners at a public elementary school. Her work has appeared in The Manifest Station, Salvation South, Inscape Magazine and other places.
Michelle Hasty is an education professor in Tennessee. Her academic writing has been published in literacy journals, such as Voices from the Middle and The Reading Teacher. Her short story, “Prone to Wander” was published in the Dillydoun Daily Review. Her poem, “Overheard, an offering” was published in Bluebird Word.
Kate Hill-Charalambides is an English teacher of dual nationality who lives in Alsace. She has worked for an association against human trafficking which is recognized as being of public utility. Her poetry focuses on human rights, spirituality and feminism. Her poetry has appeared in DREICH 3 SEASON 9 (No.99), SNAKESKIN, Cerasus Poetry ; Piker Press and The Dawn Treader.
Ruth Holzer is the author of ten chapbooks, most recently, On the Way to Man in Moon Passage (dancing girl press) and Float (Kelsay Books). Her poems have appeared in Poet Lore, Earth’s Daughters, Connecticut River Review and Plainsongs, among other journals and anthologies. She has received several Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominations.
Originally from Pennsylvania, Alicia Hoffman now lives, writes, and teaches in Rochester, New York. Her poems have appeared in a variety of publications, including Thrush, Radar Poetry, The Penn Review, Glass: A Poetry Journal, The Night Heron Barks, SWWIM, Atticus Review, and elsewhere. Her book _Browsing as a Guest_ is forthcoming from Gnashing Teeth Publishing. Find her at: www.aliciamariehoffman.com.
Scripture, or Ant Anatomy for Beginners
Beth Houston has taught writing at ten universities and colleges in California and Florida. She has published a couple hundred poems in dozens of literary journals. She edits the Extreme formal poetry anthologies (Rhizome Press). www.bethhouston.com
Since beginning to write in 2008, Nancy Jentsch‘s work has appeared in journals such as Still: The Journal and Braided Way. In 2020, she received an Artist Enrichment Grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women and the resulting collection, Between the Rows, debuted in 2022 (Shanti Arts). Her current writing project involves reinvestigating genealogical information she unearthed in the pre-computer 1980s. She has retired after 37 years of teaching and finds a bounty of inspiration in her family and her rural home.
Kitty Jospé is a retired French Teacher, art docent, but continues to moderate weekly poetry appreciation sessions since 2008 after receiving her MFA. Known for her teaching enthusiasm, joyful presentations demonstrating the uplifting power of art and word, her work delights the ear with the sound of sense. She loves to walk, capturing unusual angles of light in nature and to explore the world, preferably by bicycle and train. Her poems appear in numerous journals, local anthologies and five books published by FootHills Publishing. semi-finalist in 2013 in Finishing Line Press chapbook contest.
Liz Kendall is a poet and non-fiction writer based in Surrey. She co-authored the award-winning book Meet Us and Eat Us: Food plants from around the world, a celebration of biodiversity in poetry, prose, and fine art photography. Liz’s writing ranges from ecopoetry to devotional poems for Anubis, mythological creatures, and rock bands. Her work has appeared in Mslexia, Clarion, Consilience, and Amethyst Review, and in anthologies from Candlestick Press, The Hedgehog Poetry Press, Rough Diamond and The Winged Moon. Her website is theedgeofthewoods.uk. Liz also gives Shiatsu and massage and teaches Tai Chi Qigong.
What I am doing when I am baking apples
Kay Ann Kestner’s screenplays have placed in a variety of competitions. She is the founder and editor of the literary journal Poetry Breakfast, which she established in 2011. Her poems and short stories have been published internationally. You can read more of her work and find her latest projects on her website at www.KayKestner.com.
Olga Khmara is a Belarusian poet. Her work explores nature as a living witness. Her poetry has appeared in BirdLife Norge and is forthcoming in Sky Island Journal. She works as a nature guide.
Janet Krauss enjoyed teaching English at St. Basil Seminary for 29 years and Fairfield University for 39 years. She continues to mentor students. lead a poetry discussion at the Wilton Library, participate in the CT. Poetry Society Workshop and other poetry groups. She is the Poetry Program Director of the Black Rock Guild. She has 2 books of poetry: Borrowed Scenery (Yuganta Press) and Through the Trees of Autumn (Spartina Press). She is a widely published poet and many of her poems have been published in Amethyst Review and her haiku in Cold Moon Journal.
Jean L. Kreiling is the author of four collections of poetry; her work has earned the Able Muse Book Award, the Frost Farm Prize, the Rhina Espaillat Poetry Prize, and the Kim Bridgford Memorial Sonnet Prize, among other honors. A Professor Emeritus of Music at Bridgewater State University, she has published articles on the intersections between music and literature in numerous academic journals. She lives on the coast of Massachusetts.
David A. Lee is physician and an emerging poet based in Houston, Texas, whose work explores memory, human connection, and the liminal spaces between perception and reality. He holds a background in medical science and philosophy, bringing a reflective and inquisitive lens to his writing. His poetry draws inspiration from both contemporary and classical literature, emphasizing vivid imagery and emotional depth. His poems are forthcoming in Mobius, Eunoia Review, and Unbroken Journal. David is currently developing a collection of original poems examining time, identity, and place.
James Lilliefors is a poet and novelist, whose writing has appeared in Door Is A Jar, Ploughshares, The Washington Post, The Belfast Review, The Miami Herald, and elsewhere. His first poetry collection, Sudden Shadows, was published in October.
Charlene Langfur is an LGBTQ and green writer, an organic gardener, a Syracuse University Graduate Writing Fellow and her writing has appeared in Poetry East, Room, Weber and most recently in The Healing Muse, Still Points Arts Quarterly and the North Dakota Quarterly.
Tom Laughlin is Coordinator of the Creative Writing Program at Middlesex Community College in Massachusetts, USA, where he coordinates a visiting writers series; open readings for students; and publication of the online literary magazine Dead River Review. His poetry has appeared in Green Mountains Review, Pensive, Sand Hills, The Main Street Rag, and elsewhere. His chapbook, The Rest of the Way, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2022. His website is www.TomLaughlinPoet.com
Andrew Lustig is the Holmes Rolston III Chair in Religion and Science emeritus at Davidson College. Earlier appointments included professorships at Rice University and the Texas Medical Center, along with experience in the trenches of New York politics as staff ethicist for Governor Mario Cuomo’s Task Force on Life and the Law. As a recovering academic, he now finds solace in sharing a backlog of works without footnotes, including poetry and original music.
Melanie McCabe is the author of four books of poems, most recently the forthcoming All The Signs Were There, which won the Longleaf Press Poetry Prize. Her debut novel Road Longer Than Memory will be out from Oceanview Publishing in June of 2026. Her memoir, His Other Life: Searching For My Father, His First Wife, and Tennessee Williams, won the 2016 University of New Orleans Press Prize.
Christopher McCammon is a writer and teacher living in coastal Virginia. His philosophical work has appeared in The American Philosophical Quarterly, Ethics, and The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. His poetry has recently been published in Blue Collar Review. With friends inside and outside local prisons and jails, he co-organizes the Tidewater Solidarity Bail Fund.
A longtime New Englander, Marilyn MacArthur is a writer of poetry and creative nonfiction who works in human services and actually loves and respects humans. She has been a special education teacher and an activities director in long-term care, and is now a case manager for individuals with intellectual disabilities. A dog person who adores her cat, Marilyn is fascinated with archaeology and linguistics, loves Doctor Who and the Lord, and delights in musical comedies and Celtic rock.
Now retired from teaching as a community college English professor, and having raised three children, Pat McCutcheon and her wife live in the redwoods of far northern California. Her poems have appeared in California Quarterly, Fish Poetry Prize Anthology , Pisgah Review, Ship of Fools, Sinister Wisdom, and other journals and anthologies. In 2015 her chapbook Slipped Past Words, was published as a winner by Finishing Line Press. Her debut collection, Through the Labyrinth, was published in 2023.
Kim Malinowski is a lover of words. Her collection Home was published by Kelsay Books. Her verse novel Phantom Reflection was published by Silver Bow Press. Buffy’s House of Mirrors was published by Q, an imprint of Querencia Press. Reverberations was published by Kelsay Books. Her chapbook Death: A Love Story was published by Flutter Press. She writes because the alternative is unthinkable.
Dana Holley Maloney teaches English at Montclair State University. For a long time, she worked with high school students, as a teacher of English and Creative Writing. Her poems have appeared in Lips, North Dakota Quarterly, English Journal, and Journal of New Jersey Poets and are forthcoming in Paterson Literary Review and Pine Hills Review. At Duke University, she received the Anne Flexner Award for Poetry. When not in New Jersey, she lives in Freeport, Maine. When not writing, she is likely gardening.
The Reader Engages with the Text
John C. Mannone’s Christian-infused work appears in Windhover, Heart of Flesh Literary Journal, North Dakota Quarterly, Poetry South, Artemis, Windward Review, and others. Awarded a Jean Ritchie Fellowship (2017) in Appalachian literature, his five full-length collections include the Weatherford Award-nominated Song of the Mountains (Middle Creek Publishing, 2023) and the Tennessee Book Award 2025 finalist, Sacred Flute (Iris Press, 2024). He’s a retired professor of physics living in East Tennessee.
Marso writes poetry shaped by years of living in different cultures and by a practice of paying attention to ordinary life.
Tired as a Cold Gray Winter Day
Grace Massey is a poet, classical ballet and Baroque dancer, gardener, and socializer of feral cats. Grace was an editor in educational publishing for many years and has degrees in English from Smith College and Boston University. Her poems have been nominated for Best of the Net and have been published in numerous journals, including Quartet, Thimble, Lily Poetry Review, and One Art. Her chapbook, A Future with Bromeliads, is available from River Glass Books, Grace lives in Newton, Massachusetts. She can be reached at gracemasseypoet.com/
Dave Mehler lives in McMinnville, Oregon, and is a truckdriver for a landfill near Portland. He edits the online literary journal Triggerfish Critical Review. His full-length poetry collections are Roadworthy (2020) and Bad Is Bent Good (2025) both from Aubade Publishing. He is currently at work on a manuscript of love poems, Cloud Street.
Keith Melton holds a Master’s in City Planning from Georgia Tech and a BA in Economics and International Studies from the American University. His work has appeared in Amethyst Review, Agape Review, Big City Lit, Compass Rose, Confrontation, Cosmic Daffodil, The Galway Review, The Lyric, Kansas Quarterly, The Miscellany, Monterey Poetry Review and others.
Sally Miles paints, makes mixed media art and more recently, writes about art, spiritual experience and our relationship with plants. She has recently been published in The Ekphrastic Review.
Rita Moe’s poetry has appeared in Water~Stone, Poet Lore, Amethyst Review, Mad Swirl, and other literary journals. Besides poetry, she enjoys cartooning, knitting, gardening. Now retired from an investment firm, she has two grown sons and lives with her husband in Roseville, MN
Chris Monier lives with his family in the Bayou Region of south Louisiana where he teaches French and English at Nicholls State University. He has published poetry, literary criticism, and translations of several French-language writers.
Bruce Morton divides his time between Montana and Arizona. He is the author of Planet Mort (FootHills, 2024) and the chapbook, Olive-drab Khaki Blues, forthcoming from FootHills Publishing. His poems have appeared in numerous online and print venues. He was formerly dean at the Montana State University library.
Patricia Nelson writes Neo Modernist poetry from the San Francisco Bay Area, USA. Her new book, Monster Monologues, is recently out from Fernwood Press.
Egyptian Priest Watches the Desert
Al Ortolani’s newest collection of poems, The Taco Boat, was recently released by NYQ Books. He is a winner of the Rattle Chapbook Prize and has been featured in the Writer’s Almanac and the American Life in Poetry. His most recent publication is a novel, Bull in the Ring, published by Meadow Lark Books. Ortolani is a husband, father, and grandfather, currently entertaining the idea of becoming a hermit. However, his wife prefers the company of the neighborhood feminists, and his dog Stanley refuses to live without Milk-Bone.
Danielle Page is a truth-teller, educator, and writer currently hailing from rural Maryland. She strives to live wholeheartedly in her endeavors alongside her husband and daughters. When she’s not scribbling in her Moleskine journal, she’s tackling her To Be Read list, baking banana bread, or serving in camp ministry. She is an editor for the Clayjar Review and has been published in Ekstasis, Heart of Flesh, Vessels of Light, Traces, Solid Food Press, and elsewhere.
Michael C. Paul is a writer, illustrator, and historian who lives in Northern Virginia with his wife, daughter, and stepson.
Steven Peterson is the author of the debut collection Walking Trees and Other Poems (Finishing Line Press, 2025). His poems and reviews appear in The Christian Century, Dappled Things, First Things, Light, New Verse Review, The North American Anglican, The Windhover, and other publications. He and his wife live in Chicago.
Anita Pinatti lives in the Connecticut River Valley finding inspiration for poetry and photography nearby and beyond. Her work has appeared in Amethyst Review, Blue Heron Review, The Orchards, Sage Magazine and many other journals.
Cynthia Pitman, author of poetry collections The White Room, Blood Orange, Breathe and Broken, has been published in Amethyst Review, Literary Yard, Bright Flash Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Third Wednesday (One Sentence Poem finalist), Saw Palm: Florida Literature and Art (Pushcart Prize nominee), and other journals, and in Vita Brevis Press anthologies Pain and Renewal, Brought to Sight & Swept Away, Nothing Divine Dies, and What is All This Sweet Work?
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, StepAway Magazine, Ink Sweat & Tears, The Poetry Village, and other journals as well as in anthologies by Black Bough, Green Ink Poetry and Gothic Keats Press. His pamphlet In the Particular was published in 2017.
Andrea Potos is the author of several poetry collections, most recently The Presence of One Word, and Her Joy Becomes, both from Fernwood Press. You can find her at andreapotos.com
Ellen Jane Powers lives on the North Shore of Boston. Her life and career have taken many twists and turns, but she’s not strayed from pursuing Spirit. She spent 12 years on the editorial review board of a small literary journal from Maine. Her poems have appeared in a variety of journals and in two collections of poetry, Celestial Navigation (Cherry Grove) and Toward the Beloved (Finishing Line).
Judy Ray writes poetry and science fiction to help her explore existential wonder, power dynamics, consciousness, and belief systems. She is based in North Carolina.
Patrick T. Reardon, a Chicago Tribune reporter from 1976 to 2009, is the author of seven poetry collections. His latest is Every Marred Thing: A Time in America, the winner of the 2024 Faulkner-Wisdom Prize from the Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society of New Orleans (Lavender Ink). He is a five-time nominee in poetry for a Pushcart Prize. His poetry has appeared in America, RHINO, Commonweal, After Hours, Autumn Sky, Burningword Literary Journal and other journals.
Jeannie E. Roberts is the daughter of a Swedish immigrant mother and the author of nine books, including her latest full-length poetry collection On a Clear Night, I Can Hear My Body Sing (Kelsay Books, 2025). An award-winning artist and poet with bachelor’s and master’s degrees, she serves as a poetry editor for the online literary magazine Halfway Down the Stairs and is an Eric Hoffer and a multiple Best of the Net award nominee. She finds joy spending time outdoors and with loved ones.
The Windshield’s Reminded of America the Beautiful
Margaret T Rochford is a poet and playwright originally from Ireland living in London. She regularly performs her poetry at open mike sessions. Her poetry has been published in magazines and on line, she is working on her first pamphlet. Two of her short plays have been performed at the Irish Cultural Centre in London and she is currently working on a play about Irish dancing.
R.H. Russell grew up in New England, which he continues to call home. One of his poems was recently honored by the Inkwell Writer’s Alliance of New Hampshire; he has published in both 2025 issues of Touchstone, the journal of the Poetry Society of New Hampshire, as well as in the online journal Snakeskin.
Victor D Sandiego, once from the big city west coast of the United States, now writes his odd time compositions from his home on the edge of ex-pat society in small town. He is the founder and editor of Dog Throat Journal. His work appears in various journals and anthologies, and is upcoming in Bull and others.
Incomplete Salvation In The Tall Gray Afternoon
Suzanne Scarfone is a poet from Michigan. Influenced by English Romanticism and French Surrealism, her writing paints the visionary musical moments found in the smallest details of everyday life. Her work has appeared in such journals as New Feathers Anthology, Cider Press Review, Phoebe, Coe Review, Frigg, Ink, Sweat & Tears, Cirque: A Literary Journal for the North Pacific Rim, and in the anthology To Light a Fire: 20 Years with the InsideOut Literary Arts Project . She has also co-authored Lessons from Afghanistan: A Curriculum for Exploring Themes of Love and Forgiveness.
J.C. Scharl is a poet and critic from Royal Oak, MI. Her poetry has been featured in some of America’s top poetry journals, including The New Ohio Review and The Hudson Review, as well as internationally on the BBC and in several UK journals. Her criticism has appeared in many magazines and journals. She holds a BA in politics, philosophy, and economics from The King’s College in New York, and an MFA in poetry from Seattle Pacific University. She is the author of the poetry collection Ponds and two verse plays.
Janna Schledorn’s poems have appeared in The Marbled Sigh, SWWIM, Presence: A Journal of Catholic Poetry, and other journals. Her work is featured in the Phenomenal Women chapbook from the Laura (Riding) Jackson Foundation (2023), her chapbook, Those Nine Days (2021) and the anthology Mother Mary Comes to Me (Madville 2020). She teaches composition and creative writing at Eastern Florida State College. For more visit jannaschledorn.com
After making his rounds as a United Methodist clergyperson in Wisconsin for over thirty years, Dan Schwerin is now serving as the bishop assigned to the Northern Illinois-Wisconsin Area of The United Methodist Church.
Jennifer Susan Smith, a retired speech-language pathologist, resides in Rock Spring, Georgia. Her work appears in The Mildred Haun Review, Appalachia Bare, Troublesome Rising Digital Anthology 2025 Collection, and Sunflowers Rising: Poems for Peace Anthology, among others. She holds membership in Chattanooga Writers’ Guild, Poetry Society of Tennessee, and Georgia Poetry Society, and serves as chairman of Alpha Delta Kappa Pages and Pearls Book Club. Jennifer earned a Master of Science Degree in Communicative Disorders from University of Alabama, an Educational Specialist Degree in Curriculum and Instruction from Lincoln Memorial University, and a Creative Writing Certificate from Kennesaw State University.
Sherry Weaver Smith searches for poems in graveyards, historical society museums, and on well-worn footpaths. Her poems have been published in the California Quarterly; The Heron’s Nest; The Seventh Quarry; the Origami Poems Project; Panorama, the Journal of Travel, Place, and Nature (Cities Edition); and the Arizona Literary Magazine. She has an M.Phil. from the University of Oxford and a B.A. from Duke University.
John Whitney Steele is a psychologist, yoga teacher, assistant editor of Think: A Journal of Poetry, Fiction and Essays, and graduate of the MFA Poetry Program at Western Colorado University. A Pushcart Prize nominee, his poems have been published widely. His two collections, The Stones Keep Watch, and Shiva’s Dance, were published by Kelsay Books. John lives in Colorado and enjoys hiking in the mountains.
Jeffrey L. Taylor is a retired Software Engineer. Around 1990, poems started holding his sleep hostage. He has been published in The Perch, California Quarterly, Loud Coffee, Texas Poetry Calendar, and Texas Poetry Assignment.
Joseph Teti is an MA/PhD student in English Literature at the Catholic University of America, researching Augustine’s impact on George Herbert’s nature poetry. His poems have appeared in The Borough, Vermillion, Rialto Books Review, Clayjar Review, As Surely as the Sun, Foreshadow, and several other small Christian poetry magazines.
Daniel Thomas’s third poetry collection, River of Light, was published by Shanti Arts Publishing in 2025. His previous books are Leaving the Base Camp at Dawn and Deep Pockets. He has published poems in many journals, including Southern Poetry Review, Nimrod, Poetry Ireland Review, Vita Poetica, Radix, Atlanta Review, and others. More info at danielthomaspoetry.com
A Pushcart and Best of Net nominee, M. Benjamin Thorne is an Associate Professor of Modern European History at Wingate University. Possessed of a lifelong love of history and poetry, he is interested in exploring the synergy between the two. His poems appear or are forthcoming in Willawaw Journal, Thimble Lit Mag, Last Syllable Lit, Pictura Journal, Does It Have Pockets?, and Heimat Review. He lives and sometimes sleeps in Charlotte, NC.
Patrick Trombly wrote and published poetry at the College of the Holy Cross in 1989-1990, and upon graduation in 1991, he took a 35-year hiatus before picking the genre back up again in 2025. His poems have been published or accepted for publication in a number of journals, including Loch Raven Review, Beyond Words, the Dewdrop, Hemlock Journal and multiple Wingless Dreamer anthologies. His writing explores the relationships among humans, nature, God/the afterlife, and time. His poems are visual, use approachable language, and use various forms and literary devices such as personification, metaphor, and symbolism.
Prudence T.K. Vasquez is a poet living and writing amidst the misty mountains of southern Appalachia.
Laura Vines is from Birmingham, Alabama but spent 11 years in Alaska, which affected her music, her poetry, and her writings tremendously. She is a teacher, performer, singer-songwriter, arranger, and multi-instrumentalist.
Robert Vivian‘s last book under his own name was All I Feel Is Rivers, though he did publish a novel last year under a pseudonym.
Gerald Wagoner‘s childhood was divided between Eastern Oregon and Montana where he was raised under the doctrine of benign neglect. With a BA in Creative Writing, Gerald pursued the art of sculpture, and eventually left the Northwest to study. He earned an MFA in sculpture from SUNY Albany, and moved to Brooklyn, NY in 1982. Gerald exhibited regularly and taught Art and English for the NYC Department of Education. He currently concentrates on writing poems.
Holly Wells‘s fiction and poetry have appeared in The Magazine of History and Fiction, Sehnsucht: The C.S. Lewis Journal, The Windhover, and Sojourners, among others. She lives in Mississippi and has taught English at both the high school and community college levels.
Christopher N. West (he/him) is a PhD candidate in Practical Theology at the University of Aberdeen. He is also an Irish Anglican priest.
Wendy Westley was a successful nurse, midwife and therapist for many years in the UK. She now writes short stories and poetry, and has been published in several poetry journals.
Mike Wilson’s work has appeared in many magazines and in Mike’s book, Arranging Deck Chairs on the Titanic (Rabbit House Press). A second poetry collection (Before the Fall, Kelsay Books) and a debut novel (Food Court, Main Street Rag) are forthcoming in 2026. Mike lives in Lexington, Kentucky.
Greg Wood is a southern cosmopolitan poet with roots in Virginia and connections to Alabama and Amman, Jordan. He regularly publishes in Dissident Voice and recently was featured in Ireland’s Dodging the Rain and Britain’s The Lake. Greg is the founder of Skylight, a creative arts outreach program that has touched the lives of many across the United States.
Diana Woodcock has authored seven poetry collections, most recently Reverent Flora ~ The Arabian Desert’s Botanical Bounty (Shanti Arts, 2025), Heaven Underfoot (2022 Codhill Press Poetry Award), Holy Sparks (2020 Paraclete Press Poetry Award finalist), and Facing Aridity (2020 Prism Prize for Climate Literature finalist). A three-time Pushcart Prize nominee, she received the 2011 Vernice Quebodeaux Poetry Prize for Women for her debut collection, Swaying on the Elephant’s Shoulders. Currently teaching at VCUarts Qatar, she holds a PhD in Creative Writing from Lancaster University, where she researched poetry’s role in the search for an environmental ethic.
How to Endure These Dark Times
Matt Zambito is the author of The Fantastic Congress of Oddities (Cherry Grove Collections), and two chapbooks, Guy Talk and Checks & Balances (Finishing Line Press). Other poems have appeared in Poetry International, North American Review, Writers Without Borders, and elsewhere. Originally from Niagara Falls, he has lived in Ohio, Idaho, and Washington. He now writes from Wilson, New York.
Poem to Be Read If It’s Night Where and When You Are Right Now
Lori Zavada is passionate about free verse poetry, and sentience is a common theme in her work. Her down-to-earth approach strikes a balance between creativity and accessibility. Her work is published in Of Poets and Poetry, Emerald Coast Review, Silly Goose Press, The Lake, Gyroscope, Macrame Literary Journal, and Wild Whispers Poetry. Find her latest co-authored collection of stories and poems on Amazon: Awake in the Sacred Night: Stories and Poems.
Alina Zollfrank dreams trilingually in the Pacific Northwest. Her work has been nominated for Best of the Net and The Pushcart Prize and recently appeared or is forthcoming in SAND, Sierra Nevada Review, Door Is A Jar, Tint, Writers Resist, and Another Chicago Magazine, The MacGuffin, Salt Hill, and Thimble. Alina is a grateful recipient of the 2024 Washington Artist Trust Grant and committed disability advocate.
Amethyst Review 