Journey Daily with a Compelling Poem

Nature can help soothe many wounds. Sharon Foley’s poems have received honors and awards from Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters, Wisconsin Writers Association and The Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets and have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies including Common Ground Review, White Pelican Review, Bellowing Ark and The Aurorean. Her first collection of poetry, What is Endured, was published by Finishing Line Press 2017. She lives in Milwaukee.

Music and song can be found everywhere. Ralph Stevens lives and writes on Little Cranberry Island on the coast of Maine, in the small community of Islesford, a beautiful and congenial place for the reading and writing of poetry. He is retired after a long career as an English professor, most recently on the faculty of Coppin State University in Baltimore. His two poetry collections are At Bunker Cove from Moon Pie Press and Things Haven’t Been the Same from Finishing Line Press. He is a Pushcart Prize nominee and has poems in a variety of publications along with readings on The Writer’s Almanac and Poems from Here, a production of Maine Public Radio.

Brilliant Amaryllis-red can help brighten the gray landscape of winter. Connie Wanek is the author of four books of poetry and one book of short prose. Her work has appeared in Poetry, The Atlantic Monthly, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Quarterly West, Poetry East, Prairie Schooner, and Missouri Review. She co-edited, with Joyce Sutphen and Thom Tammaro a comprehensive historical anthology of Minnesota women poets, called To Sing Along the Way (New Rivers Press, 2006) Her many awards include the Willow Poetry Prize, the Jane Kenyon Poetry prize and Ted Kooser, Poet Laureate of the United States (2004-2006) named her a Witter Bynner Fellow of the Library of Congress for 2006. She lives with her family in Deluth, Minnesota, where she has worked at the public library and as a restorer of old homes. “Amaryllis,” first appeared in Rival Gardens: New and Selected Poems, 2016, University of Nebraska Press.

The simplest of things can become quite complicated! Kim Dower, City Poet Laureate of West Hollywood (October 2016 – October 2018), has published four collections of poetry, all with Red Hen Press: Air Kissing on Mars, described by the Los Angeles Times as, “sensual and evocative . . . seamlessly combining humor and heartache,” Slice of Moon, called “unexpected and sublime,” by “O” magazine, Last Train to the Missing Planet, “poems that speak about the grey space between tragedy and tenderness, memory and loss, fragility and perseverance,” said Richard Blanco, and Sunbathing on Tyrone Power’s Grave, which Chris Kraus, author of I Love Dick, calls exuberant, sexy and sobering.” Nominated for four Pushcart Prizes, Kim’s work has been featured in Garrison Keillor's "The Writer's Almanac," and Ted Kooser’s “American Life in Poetry,” as well as in Ploughshares, Barrow Street, and Rattle. Her poems are included in several anthologies, notably, Wide Awake: Poets of Los Angeles and Beyond, (Beyond Baroque Books/Pacific Coast Poetry Series,) and Coiled Serpent: Poets Arising from the Cultural Quakes & Shifts of Los Angeles, (Tia Chucha Press.) She teaches Poetry and Dreaming in the B.A. Program of Antioch University and Wake Up Your Prose for UCLA Extension. You can connect with Kim through her website:  www.kimdowerpoetry.com.  

Our mothers will always be with us. Kim Dower, City Poet Laureate of West Hollywood (October 2016 – October 2018), has published four collections of poetry, all with Red Hen Press: Air Kissing on Mars, described by the Los Angeles Times as, “sensual and evocative . . . seamlessly combining humor and heartache,” Slice of Moon, called “unexpected and sublime,” by “O” magazine, Last Train to the Missing Planet, “poems that speak about the grey space between tragedy and tenderness, memory and loss, fragility and perseverance,” said Richard Blanco, and Sunbathing on Tyrone Power’s Grave, which Chris Kraus, author of I Love Dick, calls exuberant, sexy and sobering.” Nominated for four Pushcart Prizes, Kim’s work has been featured in Garrison Keillor's "The Writer's Almanac," and Ted Kooser’s “American Life in Poetry,” as well as in Ploughshares, Barrow Street, and Rattle. Her poems are included in several anthologies, notably, Wide Awake: Poets of Los Angeles and Beyond, (Beyond Baroque Books/Pacific Coast Poetry Series,) and Coiled Serpent: Poets Arising from the Cultural Quakes & Shifts of Los Angeles, (Tia Chucha Press.) She teaches Poetry and Dreaming in the B.A. Program of Antioch University and Wake Up Your Prose for UCLA Extension. You can connect with Kim through her website:  www.kimdowerpoetry.com.  

Stories can survive years beyond the people who record them. Connie Wanek is the author of four books of poetry and one book of short prose. Her work has appeared in Poetry, The Atlantic Monthly, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Quarterly West, Poetry East, Prairie Schooner, and Missouri Review. She co-edited, with Joyce Sutphen and Thom Tammaro a comprehensive historical anthology of Minnesota women poets, called To Sing Along the Way (New Rivers Press, 2006) Her many awards include the Willow Poetry Prize, the Jane Kenyon Poetry prize and Ted Kooser, Poet Laureate of the United States (2004-2006) named her a Witter Bynner Fellow of the Library of Congress for 2006. She lives with her family in Deluth, Minnesota, where she has worked at the public library and as a restorer of old homes. “Abstract,” first appeared in Rival Gardens: New and Selected Poems, 2016, University of Nebraska Press.

Life is a series of conversations covering the important and mundane. A faculty member at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Joseph Mills holds holds the Susan Burress Wall Distinguished Professorship in the Humanities and was honored with a 2017 UNC Board of Governors Award for Excellence in Teaching. He has degrees in literature from the University of Chicago (B.A.), the University of New Mexico (M.A.), and the University of California-Davis (Ph.D).   His work includes poetry, fiction, drama, and criticism. He has published six volumes of poetry with Press 53: Exit, pursued by a bear; This Miraculous Turning, Sending Christmas Cards to Huck and Hamlet; Love and Other Collisions;  Angels, Thieves, and Winemakers, and Somewhere During the Spin Cycle . With his wife, Danielle Tarmey, he researched and wrote two editions of A Guide to North Carolina's Wineries (John F. Blair, Publisher). He has also edited a collection of film criticism entitled A Century of the Marx Brothers (Cambridge Scholars Publishing). He won the 2017 Rose Post Creative Nonfiction Competition sponsored by the North Carolina Writers Network for his essay, "On Hearing My Daughter Trying to Sing Dixie." In 2015, he won the North Carolina Roanoke-Chowan Award for Poetry for This Miraculous Turnin “We’ve Had This Conversation Before,” first appeared in The Miraculous Turning published by Press 53.

Don't be afraid of the wide world! Matthew Zapruder (1967) is an American poet, editor, translator, and professor. He is the author of four collections of poetry, his first book, American Linden (Tupelo Press, 2002) won the Tupelo Press Editor’s Prize and his second collection, The Pajamaist (Copper Canyon Press, 2006), won the 2007 William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America, and was chosen by Library Journal as one of the top ten poetry volumes of 2006. His work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. His numerous awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Lannan Foundation Residency Fellowship, the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America, and the May Sarton Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was co-founder and editor-in-chief of Verse Press, which has since become Wave Books. He lives in Oakland, where he is an associate professor in the Saint Mary’s College of California MFA Program in Creative Writing, as well as editor at large for Wave Books.

Music can be heard everywhere if we would simply listen. Ralph Stevens lives and writes on Little Cranberry Island on the coast of Maine, in the small community of Islesford, a beautiful and congenial place for the reading and writing of poetry. He is retired after a long career as an English professor, most recently on the faculty of Coppin State University in Baltimore. His two poetry collections are At Bunker Cove from Moon Pie Press and Things Haven’t Been the same from Finishing Line Press. He is a Pushcart Prize nominee and has poems in a variety of publications along with readings on The Writer’s Almanac and Poems from Here, a production of Maine Public Radio.

As children grow up and move away, the change can be painful. Maria Mazziotti Gillan is winner of the 2014 George Garrett Award for Outstanding Community Service in Literature from AWP, the 2011 Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award from Poets & Writers, and the 2008 American Book Award for her book, All That Lies Between Us. She is the Founder/Executive Director of the Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College, editor of the Paterson Literary Review, and director of the creative writing program/professor of English at Binghamton University-SUNY.  She has published 23 books, including What Blooms in Winter (NYQ Books, 2016) and Paterson Light and Shadow (Serving House Books, 2017). Visit her website at www.mariagillan.com “What I Can’t Tell My Son,” is in The Silence in an Empty House, New York Quarterly Books, New York, NY.

Knowing if what you feel is love or not is complicated. A faculty member at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Joseph Mills holds the Susan Burress Wall Distinguished Professorship in the Humanities and was honored with a 2017 UNC Board of Governors Award for Excellence in Teaching. He has degrees in literature from the University of Chicago (BA), the University of New Mexico (MA), and the University of California-Davis (PhD).   His work includes poetry, fiction, drama, and criticism. He has published six volumes of poetry with Press 53: Exit, pursued by a bear; This Miraculous Turning, Sending Christmas Cards to Huck and Hamlet; Love and Other Collisions;  Angels, Thieves, and Winemakers, and Somewhere During the Spin Cycle . With his wife, Danielle Tarmey, he researched and wrote two editions of A Guide to North Carolina's Wineries (John F. Blair, Publisher). He has also edited a collection of film criticism entitled A Century of the Marx Brothers (Cambridge Scholars Publishing). He won the 2017 Rose Post Creative Nonfiction Competition sponsored by the North Carolina Writers Network for his essay, "On Hearing My Daughter Trying to Sing Dixie." In 2015, he won the North Carolina Roanoke-Chowan Award for Poetry for This Miraculous Turning. “How You Know,” first appeared in Love and Other Collisions published by Press 53.

The faces of our past are reflected in the next generation. Greg Kosmicki is a poet and retired social worker and is the author of four books and eight chapbooks of poetry and his poems have appeared in numerous prestigious magazines and journals. His most recent collection of selected poems, Leaving Things Unfinished: Forty-some Years of Poems is forthcoming in 2020 from MWPH in Fairwater, WI, Tom Montag editor. He received artist’s fellowships from the Nebraska Arts council in 2000 and 2006 and two of his poems were featured on Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac. He founded The Backwaters Press in 1997, which he now serves as Editor Emeritus. He lives in Omaha Nebraska.      

Memories with lifelong friends repopulates the old town. Larry Smith graduated from Muskingum College in Ohio and earned an MA and PhD at Kent State University He taught at Firelands College-Bowling Green State University and in 1980 he was a Fulbright lecturer in American Literature in Sicily. He is the author of eight books of poetry, two books of memoirs, six books of fiction, two literary biographies of authors Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Kenneth Patchen, and two books of translations from the Chinese with co-translator Mei Hui Huang. His poetry has been featured on Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac. Two of his film scripts on authors James Wright and Kenneth Patchen have been made into films with Tom Koba and shown on PBS. He is professor of English and humanities at Firelands College (1970-2010) and is director of the Publisher, Bottom Dog Press, Inc.

Enjoy time on the Midway since life is unpredictable. Maria Mazziotti Gillan is winner of the 2014 George Garrett Award for Outstanding Community Service in Literature from AWP, the 2011 Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award from Poets & Writers, and the 2008 American Book Award for her book, All That Lies Between Us. She is the Founder/Executive Director of the Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College, editor of the Paterson Literary Review, and director of the creative writing program/professor of English at Binghamton University-SUNY.  She has published 23 books, including What Blooms in Winter (NYQ Books, 2016) and Paterson Light and Shadow (Serving House Books, 2017). Visit her website at www.mariagillan.com . “Going to the World’s Fair, 1964” first appeared in The Silence in an Empty House, New York Quarterly Books, New York NY

Connections are not always easy to find. Matt Mason is the Nebraska State Poet and Executive Director of the Nebraska Writers Collective. He runs poetry programming for the State Department, working in Nepal, Romania, Botswana and Belarus. Mason is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize for his poem “Notes For My Daughter Against Chasing Storms” and his work can be found in numerous magazines and anthologies, including Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry. The author of Things We Don’t Know We Don’t Know (The Backwaters Press, 2006) and The Baby That Ate Cincinnati (Stephen F. Austin University Press, 2013), Matt is based out of Omaha with his wife, the poet Sarah McKinstry-Brown, and daughters Sophia and Lucia.

We must trust and accept vulnerability to fully breathe. Larry Smith graduated from Muskingum College and earned an MA and PhD at Kent State University He taught at Firelands College-Bowling Green State University and In 1980 was a Fulbright lecturer in American Literature in Sicily. He is the author of eight books of poetry, two books of memoirs, six books of fiction, two literary biographies of authors Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Kenneth Patchen, and two books of translations from the Chinese with co-translator Mei Hui Huang. His poetry has been featured on Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac. Two of his film scripts on authors James Wright and Kenneth Patchen have been made into films with Tom Koba and shown on PBS. He was professor of English and Humanities at Firelands College-Bowling Green State University (1970-2010) and is director of the literary Publisher, Bottom Dog Press, Inc.

Flowers in his wife's long hair is mesmerizing. Steve Kronen's collections are Homage to Mistress Oppenheimer (Eyewear), Splendor (BOA), and Empirical Evidence (University of Georgia Press). His work has appeared widely in the US and the UK. His many awards include an NEA, three Florida Individual Artist fellowships, the Cecil Hemley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, the James Boatwright Poetry Prize from Shenandoah magazine, and fellowships from Bread Loaf, and the Sewanee Writers’ Conferences. He received an MFA from Warren Wilson College. Steve works as a librarian in Miami where he lives with his wife, novelist Ivonne Lamazares. His website is www.stevekronen.com.

Each life is precious no matter how small. Twyla M. Hansen served a five-year term as Nebraska State Poet from 2013 to 2018, is a co-director of the website Poetry from the Plains: A Nebraska Perspective, and has conducted readings and creative writing workshops through Humanities Nebraska since 1993. Her newest book of poetry, Rock • Tree • Bird (The Backwaters Press 2017), won both the 2018 WILLA Literary Award for Poetry from Women Writing the West and the 2018 Nebraska Book Award for Poetry from the Nebraska Center for the Book. She has six previous books of poetry, and her writing is published in the Academy of American Poets (poets.org), Poetry Out Loud Anthology, Prairie Schooner, Midwest Quarterly, Organization & Environment, Encyclopedia of the Great Plains, and many more. “Warbler,” first appeared in the book: In Our Very Bones (A Slow Tempo Press, 1997)

A mother never wants to hear an explosion inside the house. Debra Marquart is a Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Iowa State University and Iowa’s Poet Laureate. Marquart is the author of six books including an environmental memoir of place, The Horizontal World: Growing Up Wild in the Middle of Nowhere a collection of poems, Small Buried Things: Poem, and a short story collection, The Hunger Bone: Rock & Roll Stories. Marquart’s work has been featured on NPR and the BBC and has received over 50 grants and awards including an NEA Fellowship, a PEN USA Award, and a New York Times Editors’ Choice commendation. She is Senior Editor of Flyway: Journal of Writing & Environment, and teaches in ISU’s MFA Program in Creative Writing and Environment and in the Stonecoast Low-Residency MFA Program. Her next book, Gratitude with Dogs Under Stars: New & Collected Poems, is forthcoming from New Rivers Press in 2021. “Kablooey is the Sound You’ll Hear,” can be found in the anthology, Bullets into Bells: Poets & Citizens Respond to Gun Violence.  Eds. Brian Clements, Alexandra Teague, and Dean Rader. Beacon Press, 2017: 112-113.

A speeding car can bring a greater death any day. Debra Marquart is a Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Iowa State University and Iowa’s Poet Laureate. A memoirist, poet, and performing musician, Marquart is the author of six books including an environmental memoir of place, The Horizontal World: Growing Up Wild in the Middle of Nowhere and a collection of poems, Small Buried Things: Poems. Marquart’s short story collection, The Hunger Bone: Rock & Roll Stories drew on her experiences as a former road musician. A singer/songwriter, she continues to perform solo and with her jazz-poetry performance project, The Bone People, with whom she has recorded two CDs.  Marquart’s work has been featured on NPR and the BBC and has received over 50 grants and awards including an NEA Fellowship, a PEN USA Award, a New York Times Editors’ Choice commendation, and Elle Magazine’s Elle Lettres Award. The Senior Editor of Flyway: Journal of Writing & Environment, Marquart teaches in ISU’s interdisciplinary MFA Program in Creative Writing and Environment and in the Stonecoast Low-Residency MFA Program at the University of Southern Maine. Her next book, Gratitude with Dogs Under Stars: New & Collected Poems, is forthcoming from New Rivers Press in 2021.

Give praise to our land and our ancestors. Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, Ph.D., the 2009-13 Kansas Poet Laureate is the author of 23 books, including Miriam's Well, a novel; Everyday Magic: A Field Guide to the Mundane and Miraculous, and Following the Curve, poetry. Her previous work includes The Divorce Girl, a novel; Needle in the Bone, a non-fiction book on the Holocaust; The Sky Begins At Your Feet, a bioregional memoir on cancer and community; and six poetry collections, including the award-winning Chasing Weather with photographer Stephen Locke. Founder of Transformative Language Arts, Mirriam-Goldberg also leads writing workshops widely and coaches people on writing and right livelihood through the arts. You can find out much more about her at www.CarynMirriamGoldberg.com.

What do children lose when they acquire language? Diane Thiel is the author of ten books of poetry and nonfiction, including Echolocations, Resistance Fantasies, and Winding Roads, among others. Thiel's work has appeared in many journals, including Poetry, The Hudson Review, and the Sewanee Review and is re-printed in over sixty major anthologies. Her awards include a PEN award, an NEA International Literature Award, the Robinson Jeffers Award, the Robert Frost Award, the Nicholas Roerich Award, and she was a Fulbright Scholar. Thiel received her undergraduate and graduate degrees from Brown University and is Professor of English and Associate Chair for Undergraduate Studies at the University of New Mexico. With her husband and four children, Thiel has traveled and lived in Europe, South America, Asia, and Australia, working on literary and environmental projects.    “The First Sea,” from Diane Thiel’s forthcoming poetry collection, first appeared in The Burden of the Beholder from The Press at Colorado College. 

John Nash was a genius who pushed mathematics to its outer limits as described in this poem awarded first prize in the BBC International Poetry Contest. Pamela Spiro Wagner (now known as Phoebe Sparrow Wagner) is an author and poet who suffers from schizophrenia, complicated by narcolepsy and CNS Lyme disease. She has completed two collections of poetry Learning to See in Three Dimensions, Green Writers Press, and We Mad Climb Shaky Ladders, Cavankerry Press 2009 the later which was a finalist for Foreword review’s Poetry Book of the Year. She also co-authored with her sister, Divided Minds: Twin Sisters and their Journey through Schizophrenia (St. Martin’s Press, 2005) which won the National NAMI Outstanding Literature Award and was a finalist for the Connecticut Book Award.  Her poem, “The Prayers of the Mathematician,” won first prize in the BBC International Poetry Contest. She lives in Brattleboro Vermont. “The Prayers Of  The Mathematician first appeared in We Mad Climb Shaky Ladders, Cavankerry Press 2009.

The wonders of math can be found in daily life. Robin Chapman is the author of ten books of poetry, most recently The Only Home we Know (Tebot Bach, 2019) Her many awards include; a Wisconsin Arts Board Literary Arts Fellowship, 2007, Posner Poetry Award From Council for Wisconsin Writers, 2000, 2006; Honorable mention, 2012; Outstanding Achievement in Poetry Award from the Wisconsin Library Association 2008, 2017; Helen Howe Poetry Prize, Appalachia, 2010. She is professor emeritus of Communicative Disorders at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Mary Laycock,” is copyright by Robin Chapman and originally appeared in Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, 2015, and in her book of poems Six True Things (Tebot Back, 2016) by Robin Chapman.

Sibling relationships are funny, amazing, and complicated  Floyd Skloot's poetry and prose have won three Pushcart Prizes, the PEN USA Literary Award, and been included in Best American Essays, Best American Science Writing, Best Spiritual Writing, and Best Food Writing. Poets & Writers named him "One of 50 of the Most Inspiring Authors in the World." His books include the memoirs In the Shadow of Memory and The Wink of the Zenith: The Shaping of a Writer's Life (University of Nebraska Press); the poetry collections The End of Dreams, The Snow's Music, Approaching Winter, and  Far West (all from LSU Press, ), and the novel The Phantom of Thomas Hardy (University of Wisconsin Press). He lives in Oregon with his wife, Beverly Hallberg. Skloot's daughter Rebecca is the author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (Crown, 2010). They co-edited The Best American Science Writing 2011 (Ecco/HarperCollins, 2012).   “At Last,” first appeared in Far West LSU Press 2019.  Permission to read poem granted by LSU press.

How will chaos theorists respond to a changed lecture schedule? Robin Chapman is the author of ten books of poetry, most recently The Only Home We Know (Tebot Bach, 2019) Her many awards include; a Wisconsin Arts Board Literary Arts Fellowship, 2007, Posner Poetry Award from Council for Wisconsin Writers, 2000, 2006; Honorable Mention, 2012; Outstanding Achievement in Poetry Award from the Wisconsin Library Association 2008, 2017; Helen Howe Poetry Prize, Appalachia, 2010. She is Professor Emeritus of Communicative Disorders at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “The Chaos Theorists Discuss Poetry,” is copyright by Robin Chapman and originally appeared in Verse Wisconsin, 2012, and in the book of poems Six True Things (Tebot Bach, 2016) by Robin Chapman.

A moving tribute to Flannery O'Connor. Floyd Skloot's poetry and prose have won three Pushcart Prizes, the PEN USA Literary Award, and been included in Best American Essays, Best American Science Writing, Best Spiritual Writing, and Best Food Writing. Poets & Writers named him "One of 50 of the Most Inspiring Authors in the World." His books include the memoirs In the Shadow of Memory and The Wink of the Zenith: The Shaping of a Writer's Life (University of Nebraska Press); the poetry collections The End of Dreams, The Snow's Music, Approaching Winter, and  Far West (all from LSU Press, ), and the novel The Phantom of Thomas Hardy (University of Wisconsin Press). He lives in Oregon with his wife, Beverly Hallberg. Skloot's daughter Rebecca is the author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (Crown, 2010). They co-edited The Best American Science Writing 2011 (Ecco/HarperCollins, 2012).  “O’Connor at Andalusia,” first appeared in The End of Dreams LSU Press 2006. Permission to read poem granted by LSU Press.

Many times it's the small annoyances that bother us the most. Jay Hopler was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 1970, and he has earned degrees from New York University, The Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars and The Iowa Writers' Workshop. He is the author of two books of poetry and two anthologies and has published in numerous journals. His other awards include a Whiting Writers' Award and a Rome Prize in Literature from the America Academy in Rome. He is a professor of English at the University of South Florida.

Many of us spent a lot of time in our mother's van. Faith Shearin is the author of five books of poetry: The Owl Question, The Empty House, Moving the Piano, Telling the Bees, and Orpheus Turning. Her work has appeared in numerous journals including the Alaska Quarterly Review and Poetry East, and has been read aloud by Garrison Keillor on The Writer's Almanac. She is the recipient of the May Swenson award and has received awards from The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, The Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Her work also appears in The Autumn House Anthology of Contemporary Poets and Good Poems, American Places. She lives in West Virginia. “My Mother’s Van,” from Darwin’s Daughter (Stephen F. Austin University Press 2018)

Some jobs just aren't for everyone. Dorianne Laux’s fifth collection, The Book of Men, was awarded The Paterson Prize. Her fourth book of poems, Facts About the Moon won The Oregon Book Award and was short-listed for the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize. Laux is also the author of Awake; What We Carry, a finalist for the National Book Critic’s Circle Award; Smoke; as well as a fine small press edition, The Book of Women. She is the co-author of the celebrated text The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry. Only As the Day is Long: New and Selected, was released by W.W. Norton in early 2019. She is a Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets. Permission to read “What I Wouldn’t Do,” granted by the author and The Field Office, Vaughan Ashlie Fielder, Founder.

The tiny creatures living beneath us deserve praise too. Dorianne Laux’s fifth collection, The Book of Men, was awarded The Paterson Prize. Her fourth book of poems, Facts About the Moon won The Oregon Book Award and was short-listed for the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize. Laux is also the author of Awake; What We Carry, a finalist for the National Book Critic’s Circle Award; Smoke; as well as a fine small press edition, The Book of Women. She is the co-author of the celebrated text The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry. Only As the Day is Long: New and Selected, was released by W.W. Norton in early 2019. She is a Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets. Permission to read “Psalm,” granted by the author and The Field Office, Vaughan Ashlie Fielder, Founder.

A town comprised of copper miners leaves a lasting impression. David Lee Garrison’s poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, and two poems from his book Sweeping the Cemetery were read by Garrison Keillor on The Writer’s Almanac. “Bach in the DC Metro” was featured by United States Poet Laureate Ted Kooser on his website and read on the BBC in London. Garrison won the Paul Laurence Dunbar Poetry Prize in 2009 and was named Ohio Poet of the Year in 2014. He is a retired Wright State University Professor and lives in Oakwood, Ohio.

We may never know the fortunes we leave behind. Charlie Smith is the author of seven novels and seven books of poetry including Red Roads, which was chosen for the National Poetry Series and received the Great Lakes New Poets Award. His many awards include the Aga Khan Prize, the Levinson prize, the J. Howard and Barbara M.J. Wood prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. He lives in New York City and Key West.

Sometimes personal hardship may lead to blessings. Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, Ph.D., the 2009-13 Kansas Poet Laureate is the author of 23 books, including Miriam's Well, a novel; Everyday Magic: A Field Guide to the Mundane and Miraculous, and Following the Curve, poetry. Her previous work includes The Divorce Girl, a novel; Needle in the Bone, a non-fiction book on the Holocaust; The Sky Begins At Your Feet, a bioregional memoir on cancer and community; and six poetry collections, including the award-winning Chasing Weather with photographer Stephen Locke. Founder of Transformative Language Arts, Mirriam-Goldberg also leads writing workshops widely and coaches people on writing and right livelihood through the arts. You can find out much more about her at www.CarynMirriamGoldberg.com.

Witnessing a meteor shower can leave you speechless Twyla M. Hansen served a five-year term as Nebraska State Poet from 2013 to 2018, is a co-director of the website Poetry from the Plains: A Nebraska Perspective, and has conducted readings and creative writing workshops through Humanities Nebraska since 1993. Her newest book of poetry, Rock • Tree • Bird (The Backwaters Press 2017), won both the 2018 WILLA Literary Award for Poetry from Women Writing the West and the 2018 Nebraska Book Award for Poetry from the Nebraska Center for the Book.  She has six previous books of poetry, and her writing is published in the Academy of American Poets (poets.org), Poetry Out Loud Anthology, Prairie Schooner, Midwest Quarterly, Organization & Environment, Encyclopedia of the Great Plains, and many more. “August 12 in the Nebraska Sand Hills Watching the Perseids Meteor Shower,” was first published in Potato Soup (The Backwaters Press 2003) which won the 2004 Nebraska Book Award for Poetry.

What would your self-portrait look like today? Adam Zagajewski is a Polish poet, novelist, translator and essayist. He has published fourteen books of poetry, eight of them in English translation and numerous essays and prose. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship, won the 2004 Neustadt International Prize for Literature considered a forerunner to the Nobel Prize in Literature, won the 2016 Griffin Poetry Prize Lifetime Recognition Award and the 2017 Princess of Asturias Award for Literature.  He is considered one of the leading poets of Generation of ‘68’ of the Polish New Wave and is one of Poland’s most prominent contemporary poets. Zagajewski used to teach poetry workshops as a visiting lecturer at the School of Literature and Arts at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow as well as a creative writing course at the University of Houston. He currently is a faculty member at the University of Chicago and a member of its Committee on Social Thought.

    Hands that are graceful and kind make all the difference. Steve Kronen's collections are Homage to Mistress Oppenheimer (Eyewear), Splendor (BOA), and Empirical Evidence (University of Georgia Press). His work has appeared widely in the US and the UK. His many awards include a NEA and three Florida Individual Artist fellowships, the Cecil Hemley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, the James Boatwright Poetry Prize from Shenandoah magazine, and fellowships from Bread Loaf, and the Sewanee Writers’ Conferences. He received an MFA from Warren Wilson College. Steve works as a librarian in Miami where he lives with his wife, novelist Ivonne Lamazares. His website is www.stevekronen.com.

Who knows where a little hot sauce might take you. Jim Lewis is the author of a full-length poetry book a clear day in October, and a chapbook, every evening is December. He is a nurse practitioner as well as part time photographer and artist and lives in California. A second collection of poems is soon to be published by Kelsay Books.

Dandelions always seem to find a way to return. Michael Skau’s book of poems, Me and God was published through Wayne State College Press and two chapbooks of poems through Word Tech Editions. His poems have appeared in numerous periodicals and journals and he was awarded the 2013 William Kloefkorn Award for Excellence in Poetry. He has published articles on Jack Kerouac, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Richard Brautigan, Burroughs, and Corso, as well as books on Ferlinghetti and Corso. He is an emeritus professor in the Department of English at the University of Nebraska Omaha, where he taught for 37 years.

  What stretch of road is the thin line of what you know? Matt Mason is the Nebraska State Poet and Executive Director of the Nebraska Writers Collective. He runs poetry programming for the State Department, working in Nepal, Romania, Botswana and Belarus. Mason is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize for his poem “Notes For My Daughter Against Chasing Storms” and his work can be found in numerous magazines and anthologies, including Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry. The author of Things We Don’t Know We Don’t Know (The Backwaters Press, 2006) and The Baby That Ate Cincinnati (Stephen F. Austin University Press, 2013), Matt is based out of Omaha with his wife, the poet Sarah McKinstry-Brown, and daughters Sophia and Lucia.

If we allow our lives to unfold naturally without any sense of planning, are we savoring or squandering our lives? Grace Bauer’s poems, essays, and stories have appeared in numerous anthologies and journals. Her most recent book of poems is MEAN/TIME, (University of New Mexico Press, 2017) and a co-edited anthology is, Nasty Women Poets: An Unapologetic Anthology of Subversive Verse (Lost Horse Press).  Other books include: The Women At The Well, Nowhere All At Once, Beholding Eye, and Retreats & Recognitions. “Corsons Inlet” appears in Nowhere All At Once. ​

How can we stay in perfect balance? Adam Zagajewski is a Polish poet, novelist, translator and essayist. He has published fourteen books of poetry, eight of them in English translation and numerous essays and prose. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship, won the 2004 Neustadt International Prize for Literature considered a forerunner to the Nobel Prize in Literature, won the 2016 Griffin Poetry Prize Lifetime Recognition Award and the 2017 Princess of Asturias Award for Literature.  He is considered one of the leading poets of Generation of ‘68’ of the Polish New Wave and is one of Poland’s most prominent contemporary poets. Zagajewski used to teach poetry workshops as a visiting lecturer at the School of Literature and Arts at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow as well as a creative writing course at the University of Houston. He currently is a faculty member at the University of Chicago and a member of its Committee on Social Thought.

What would it feel like to offer an ex-employee their job back? Bob Hicok is the author of nine books of poetry, his most recent is Hold (Copper Canyon Press 2018.)  His work has received three Pushcart Prize nominations and his book The Legend of Light received a Felix Pollak Prize and was chosen as an American Library Association’s Booklist, Notable Book of the Year. Elegy Owed was shortlisted as a National Book Critics Circle Award. He has received two National Endowment of the Arts Fellowships and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He is a Professor of Creative Writing at Virginia Tech.

If you aren't careful, you might seriously injure yourself in the grocery store. Hal Sirowitz is an internationally known poet and the author of five books of poetry. His work has been translated into thirteen languages and published in magazines and anthologies. He received the Nebraska Book Award for Poetry, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship. He is also the former Poet Laureate of Queens, New York. Hal has appeared on MTV’s Spoken Word Unplugged; Lollapalooza; Edinburgh’s Fringe Festival; the Helsinki International Poetry Festival; PBS’s Poetry Heaven; NPR’s All Things Considered and many others.  Garrison Keillor has read many of Hal’s poems on NPR’s Writer's Almanac. He is a retired New York City public school teacher and lives in Philadelphia.

Books are the best teachers of all. Michael Skau’s poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. Me and God was published by Wayne State College Press and two chapbooks by Word Tech Editions. He was awarded the 2013 William Kloefkorn Award for Excellence in Poetry. He has published articles on Jack Kerouac, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Richard Brautigan, Burroughs, and Corso, as well as books on Ferlinghetti and Corso. He is an emeritus professor in the Department of English at the University of Nebraska Omaha, where he taught for 37 years.

There's nothing like an open highway, car windows down, and some great music! Dana Gioia is an American Poet and writer, critic, as well as a businessman with an MBA from Stanford Business School. He has published five books of poetry and three volumes of literary criticism as well as opera libretti and over two dozen literary anthologies. He has served as a commentator on American literature for BBC Radio and as a classical music critic for San Francisco magazine. He became the California State poet Laureate in 2015 and teaches at the University of Southern California. He divides his time between Los Angeles and Sonoma County California.

Sometimes you don't need a lot to feel wealthy Bruce Dethlefsen is an American poet and poetry teacher who has published several chapbooks and full length collections. Something Near the Dance Floor (Marsh River Editions, 2003) won the Posner Book-length Poetry Award Honorable Mention from the Council for Wisconsin Writers. Breather (Fireweed Press, 2009), received an Outstanding Achievement Award in Poetry from the Wisconsin Library Association. His work has also been nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2003 and 2009 and he was appointed poet laureate of Wisconsin for 2011-2012. His poetry has also been featured on Garrison Keillor’s Writers’ Almanac. He served as secretary of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets for six years, co-founded the WFOP Chapbook Prize and started Poet Camp.

A new way to consider the silence following the hubbub of the holidays. Catherine Abbey Hodges is the author of In a Rind of Light, forthcoming from Stephen F. Austin State University Press in February 2020. Her previous full-length collections are Raft of Days (Gunpowder Press 2017) and Instead of Sadness (Gunpowder Press 2015), the latter selected by Dan Gerber as winner of the Barry Spacks Poetry Prize. Her poems have appeared widely and been featured on The Writer’s Almanac and Verse Daily. Catherine teaches English at Porterville College in California’s San Joaquin Valley, co-coordinates California Poets in the Schools for Tulare County, and collaborates with musician and labyrinth-maker Rob Hodges. Learn more at www.catherineabbeyhodges.com. “January Song,” is from Instead of Sadness (Gunpowder Press 2015) first published in Connotation Press.

What actually makes you lucky? Greg Kosmicki is a poet and retired social worker and is the author of four books and eight chapbooks of poetry and his poems have appeared in numerous prestigious magazines and journals. His most recent collection of selected poems, Leaving Things Unfinished: Forty-some Years of Poems, is forthcoming in 2020 from MWPH in Fairwater, WI, Tom Montag editor. He received artist’s fellowships from the Nebraska Arts council in 2000 and 2006 and two of his poems were featured on Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac. He founded The Backwaters Press in 1997, which he now serves as Editor Emeritus. He lives in Omaha Nebraska.      

You never know what kind of trouble unwashed sheets can bring. Hal Sirowitz is an internationally known poet and the author of five books of poetry. His work has been translated into thirteen languages and published in many anthologies and magazines. He received the Nebraska Book Award for Poetry, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship. He is also the former Poet Laureate of Queens, New York. Hal has appeared on MTV’s Spoken Word Unplugged; Lollapalooza; Edinburgh’s Fringe Festival; the Helsinki International Poetry Festival; PBS’s Poetry Heaven; NPR’s All Things Considered and many others.  Garrison Keillor has read many of Hal’s poems on NPR’s The Writer's Almanac. He is a retired New York City public school teacher and lives in Philadelphia.

if you misbehave, your mother might just have to sell you to the hot dog man! Bruce Dethlefsen is an American poet and poetry teacher who has published several chapbooks and full length collections. Something Near the Dance Floor (Marsh River Editions, 2003) won the Posner Book-length Poetry Award Honorable Mention from the Council for Wisconsin Writers. Breather (Fireweed Press, 2009), received an Outstanding Achievement Award in Poetry from the Wisconsin Library Association. His work has also been nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2003 and 2009 and he was appointed poet laureate of Wisconsin for 2011-2012. His poetry has also been featured on Garrison Keillor’s Writers’ Almanac. He served as secretary of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets for six years, co-founded the WFOP Chapbook Prize and started Poet Camp.