Les Negres de Paris
“…Every back, / it seems, is a blood neighbor” | Kwame Dawes
KWAME DAWES is the author of twenty books of poetry and numerous other books of fiction, criticism, and essays. In 2016, his book, Speak from Here to There, a co-written collection of verse with Australian poet John Kinsella was published. His most recent collection, City of Bones: A Testament (Northwestern University Press) was published in …
ELLEN BASS’s most recent collection, Indigo, was published by Copper Canyon Press in 2020. Her other poetry books include Like a Beggar, The Human Line, and Mules of Love. Her poems appear frequently in The New Yorker, American Poetry Review, and many other journals. Among her awards are Fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, The NEA, …
Holly Welker is an award-winning poet and essayist living in Arizona. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Best American Essays, and other publications. poems
CHANA BLOCH was a poet, translator, scholar, and teacher. The daughter of Jewish immigrants from what is now Ukraine, Chana Bloch grew up in the Bronx, received a BA in Semitic Studies from Cornell University, MA degrees in Judaic studies and English literature from Brandeis University, and a PhD in English literature from the University …
KATHERINE TOWLER is an author, editor, and creative writing professor, as well as being a poet. Her essays, poetry, short stories, and interviews have appeared in many literary journals. She also works as a freelance writer specializing in publications and promotional materials for schools and non-profits. poems
“and the outsized appetites/I am shedding bit by bit” | by Katherine Towler
EMILY PORTILLO is a queer poet, mother, and avid over-thinker from the Boston area. She was a poetry finalist in the 2020 Tucson Festival of Books Literary Awards and the winner of the 2022 Ellen Conroy Kennedy Poetry Contest. Her work has been published in Rattle Magazine and elsewhere. poems
“In no time, he cannot/ see too far into himself, so full he is, so dull” | by Anna Leahy
ANNA LEAHY’s latest books are the poetry collections What Happened Was: and Aperture and the nonfiction book Tumor. Her work has appeared at Aeon, Atlanta Review, The Atlantic, Bennington Review, BuzzFeed, Poetry, Scientific American, The Southern Review, and elsewhere, and her essays have won top awards from Mississippi Review, Los Angeles Review, Ninth Letter, and …
MICHAEL TORRES was born and brought up in Pomona, California where he spent his adolescence as a graffiti artist. His debut collection of poems, An Incomplete List of Names (Beacon Press, 2020) was selected by Raquel Salas Rivera for the National Poetry Series and named one of NPR’s Best Books of 2020. His honors include …
“pull stems away from the ground by root / and wastrel hair yanked scaffolding of a summer” | by Jenny Grassl
“just a dayflower/dwarf in the blur-vast view/by won-heart ingress of loose strife” | by Jenny Grassl
JENNY GRASSL’s poems have appeared in The Boston Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Laurel Review, Green Mountains Review, The Massachusetts Review, Lana Turner, Bennington Review, Best American Poetry Blog, and other journals. Her work was published in a National Poetry Month feature of Iowa Review. Her manuscript DEER WOMAN IN THE DINING …
“In my all-boys school they’re all dumber than me./ I sit in the back and read André Gide” | by Armen Davoudian, co-winner 2021 PI Prize
“…she’s gone—/ like the hairpin Virginia Woolf stuck into her unruly bun” | by Eva Heisler, co-winner 2021 PI Prize