Articles – Page 43 – Philadelphia Stories

Lightbearers

Editor’s Choice: 2020 Sandy Crimmins Poetry Contest

The zebrafish’s neon stripes
and globe eyes flash in LEDs
as our bodies marble in reply with squiggles
of phosphorus. Who can say
what spirit moves in us as it moves
eel-like on my mom’s blue hat, the one
with a crab on the front, brim hovering
like a cave mouth over her invisible face?
Who can say what god spoke to her
earlier at church while I was sleeping?
My brother extends an awkward hand to spook
some arowanas gliding too close to the glass,
and mom twitches as if she means
to stop him, then reconsiders, stills her hand
and rests it in the dark as if upon
a shoulder, as I wonder what the pastor said
today and if it would have moved
me still in spite of everything.

Mother Explains

Honorable Mention: 2020 Sandy Crimmins Poetry Contest

Jane Miller_poetry

Where your brother went, a river met him at the shadow’s edge, a river he walked on
we cannot see, though it flows near us and all the small fish you can imagine wait, circling as if on a merry-go-round until he toes in; and it is then they feel his small steps, each vibration a plated splash and they rise: blue gills, pygmy puffer fish, black mollies, orange clowns, all clamber, making for him a path.

He is not alone. Every step he takes, a fish takes its place underfoot, each fish a finned rock holding him as he walks so that your brother who cannot swim begins to hopscotch, sinking ever so slightly and then popping up, the fish under him shimmering like landing lights; in the dimpling water, the kiss of stars where he treads. He twirls and looks back; his arms spread wide beckon us, but the shore he left is fogged and fading.

Now he is distant and small, but in the vanishing I see him crawl into fins and scales
and become one of them, joyous and teeming. He has learned a new way to live and here inside us, who are mostly water, when you least expect it, you will shiver
and feel him.

Jane C. Miller’s poetry has appeared in numerous journals. She received first prize in Naugatuck River Review’s 11th annual narrative poetry contest. A fellowship recipient from the Delaware Division of the Arts, Miller is co-author of the collection, Walking the Sunken Boards published by Pond Road Press (2019).

Matthew

Honorable Mention: 2020 Sandy Crimmins Poetry Contest

Chad Frame_poetry

We’re twenty, nude, everything firm
and responsive to the touch, soft
breeze cool on our flanks as the pool
laps small waves at the edges, night
purpling above us. You tell me

you have feelings, but I am young
enough to believe chemistry
waits dormant in all things for fire
to ignite—that perfect bonds form
on a whim. Years pass by in months,

six not talking, three back in touch,
each fuck-of-the-week with his flaws
you sob to me—the built frat boy
with awful car playlists, the twink
who texts you from across the room,

the circuit boy who makes the clack-
clack of credit cards on mirrors
every morning as he cuts
his breakfast lines. And each painting
you finish with a casual

mastery, sneaking some aspect
of one of them onto canvas—
the hyperreal Spartan soldier
who looks exactly like the guy
really into getting tied up,

the abstract square that is the house
you move into for a few months
with the one with the high-pitched voice
that drives you to drink and tell me
in some drab diner, like always,

that you wish we could have made it
work. A tentacle of cold cream
slowly wraps around my coffee
as I joke At least you’d paint me,
and the whole dark is strangled pale
again.

Chad Frame’s work appears in Rattle, Mom Egg Review, Barrelhouse, Rust+Moth, and other journals and anthologies, as well as on iTunes from the Library of Congress. He is the Director of the Montgomery County Poet Laureate Program and Poet Laureate Emeritus of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, the Poetry Editor of Ovunque Siamo: New Italian-American Writing, a founding member of the No River Twice poetry improv performance troupe, and founder of the Caesura Poetry Festival and Retreat.

On Wassily Kandinsky’s Painting: “Little Painting in Yellow”

Honorable Mention: 2020 Sandy Crimmins Poetry Contest

Kathleen Shaw_poetry

Just before the Great War, Kandinsky
took time to paint something yellow,
something little, something that looked
like nothing anyone had ever seen. How
shocked they were– how outre to
paint something so unwarlike, how
perverse to veer from standards.
Is that an egg? Is that a sun? Is that
a cloud? Is that a mouth?
Yes, yes, yes, yes and no, no, no, no,
said Kandinsky, silently out loud,
thinking, while not thinking of war.

Kathleen Shaw is a semi-retired assistant professor of English at a community college. She has had poetry published in Philadelphia Stories, Anthology magazine, Derail, Schuylkill Valley Journal and online journals. She is now in the process of completing her first novel.

How to Ride a Train in the Andes

Runner Up: 2020 Sandy Crimmins Poetry Contest

Lupita_Eyde-Tucker.photo_poetry

In a coastal sweatland shanty town, I vowed
to clamber onto the corrugated steel
roof of a train car, to throw my life

up first like a knapsack, charcoal-cleanse
my nose, my lungs, my pores— be delivered
aching, for twelve-hours up a shifty seam

of steel my Abuelito laid
the one who carried the train on his back
Hold my breath, stay low, remember

to not drink chicha on the roof with the local boys
not to lose my head, or turn my back
on the tunnel like bisabuelo did. Hold tight

until the train stops just past Devil’s Nose
in a tiny Andes town, overlooked
by wooden window balconies

steel-sliced cobblestone kingdom
bearing a cordillera crown. Here
I let my fingers stroke the velvet mountain’s cloak

and from the furrows of the knitted fields
I see my Abuelita come running
the one waiting for the whistle

tired of air-kissing the cheek of fate
watch her smudge coal off her brow
watch her tuck family secrets down her blouse

purchase a ticket to another life
The first man who crosses my path
she vowed: con ése me largo.

Lupita Eyde-Tucker writes and translates poetry in English and Spanish. She’s the winner of the 2019 Betty Gabehart Prize for Poetry, and her poems appear in Nashville Review, SWWIM, The Florida Review, Asymptote, Columbia Journal, Raleigh Review, and are forthcoming in The Arkansas International, Chautauqua, Yemassee, and Waccamaw. She’s currently translating two collections of poetry by Venezuelan poet Oriette D’Angelo. Lupita and her husband live and homeschool their children in Florida. Read more of her poems at: www.NotEnoughPoetry.com

Lukens Steel, Coatesville, Pennsylvania

Runner Up: 2020 Sandy Crimmins Poetry Contest

kylecarrozzaphoto_poetry

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
The steel mill that sprawled across the city
reached toward the sky with the roofs of each wing.
Even on Sundays, the men in torn
khakis and faded t-shirts filed into the mill.

My father was one of them. In Sunday School,
I imagined him standing around, shooting the shit
about recession or politics, waiting for his shift
to begin. Punching in is a ritual of Wonder
Bread and pocket change.
The body of Christ, given for you.

He made huge sheets of steel, long,
pure, and absolutely silver until
outsourcing turned emblem into epitaph—
Bethlehem Steel’s takeover could not save the place.
Still, the mill stands, decaying, hollow
monument to itself, the rituals abandoned.

The Lord loves the gates of Zion
more than all the dwellings of Jacob.

Almost no steel is produced anymore;
instead, the silver pours out onto the faded
streets, the concrete walls of the city’s banks,
into the hair of old men.

Kyle Carrozza is a teacher and soccer coach who lives and breathes Coatesville, PA. His journalism has been published in The Coatesville Times, Scarecrow Grin, and The Korean Quarterly. His poetry has appeared in The City Key.

Feeding My Father Pudding While Watching Bonanza

Runner Up: 2020 Sandy Crimmins Poetry Contest

Chad Frame_poetry

All any relationship boils down to
is are you willing to do this for me
or aren’t you? Hoss and tapioca

and what remains of your life all balanced
precariously on a plastic spoon.
Every week, the grown Cartwright boys learn

another life lesson from their father
who has seen some things in his day, who knows
better. And maybe all death really is

is gradual unlearning, the pudding
crusting in your beard like infant spit-up.
I have driven two hundred miles each day

for two weeks to be here to watch old shows,
nurses prodding, your chest rising, falling,
but these are the distances that matter—

spoon to mouth, screen to face, son to father,
father to grave. Your thousand-yard stare’s fixed
vaguely on the wall-arm television

where Michael Landon is falling in love
with Bonnie Bedelia, and we know
(half-century old spoiler) that Hoss dies

offscreen because Dan Blocker dies offscreen
from botched surgery. But it is enough
to know the twangy theme is still playing,

galloping into and out of the room,
even when the spoon scrapes an empty cup,
even when we pull the sheets all the way up.

Milk Sickness: A Mother Worries as Her Children Sleep

Winner of the 2020 Sandy Crimmins Poetry Contest

Kari_Ann_Ebert_poetry

sometimes I see snakes in a milk pail
noisy tumbles of coils & scales
I lie awake steeled vigilant
absorb the discord of writhing
bodies in my opaque world

I wonder if they know they swim in sacrifice

maybe they think it’s water edged by meadow
maybe they dream the spinning of their skins
will loose them to catch the scent
of mouse or egg
in a dreamscape of venom & froth

or is it panic
black thick rich like cream
panic that weighs them down
roiling blind only to find they’re trapped
and soused in humors

maybe the milk’s a mirror
a mother-of-pearl shine that splashes
the black snake hole in my eye
if I stare at the waves the sloshes of nacre
maybe my tongue will smell a way out
lift me with a swell as the vipers sink
like weighted calcite beneath the tide
black pearls lost at sea
maybe then stillness will claim me
a silence only I can taste like stolen butter

Kari Ann Ebert is a poet & writer living in Dover, Delaware. She was recently awarded an Individual Artist Fellowship by the Delaware Division of the Arts (2020). Winner of the 2018 Gigantic Sequins Poetry Contest, her work has appeared in Mojave River Review, Philadelphia Stories, The Broadkill Review, and Gargoyle, as well as several anthologies. She was selected to attend the BOAAT Press Writer’s Retreat (2020) with Shane McCrae, awarded a fellowship by Brooklyn Poets (2019), and selected to attend the Delaware Division of the Arts Seashore Writers Retreat (2016). She also enjoys making up-cycled art and collaborating with local artists, musicians, and writers.

Letter from the Poetry Editor

Letter from the Poetry Editor: Courtney Bambrick

Each year, Philadelphia Stories celebrates the memory of poet Sandy Crimmins whose poem “Spring” appeared in our first issue. Sandy served on the Philadelphia Stories poetry board until 2007, and her influence on the magazine has been felt ever since. We use the prize named for her to celebrate risk and innovation in poetry. This year’s Sandy Crimmins National Prize in Poetry was judged by poet Iain Haley Pollock, author of Ghost, like a Place and Spit Back a Boy. Many of the poems we sent him raise important questions and give voice to unsettled feelings. Pollock says that, “[W]e live in an exciting, efflorescent time in the history of American poetry.” We can see that flowering in the poems listed below. Pollock continues:

These poems explore diverse subjects—the lonely offices of grief, the deterioration of our public discourse, the cruel legacies of our national history, the triumphant possibilities of migration, the wistful complications of eros, and the sustaining inheritances of family. But no matter the subject the unflinching clarity of each poet’s vision and the precision of each poet’s images tap into a deep well of emotion. The pleasures of these poems are not easy but lie in knowing that out there other humans wrestle to make sense of the intractable world around them and perhaps even find within it cause for hard-won celebration.

The winner of this year’s Sandy Crimmins National Prize in Poetry winds itself in the conflicting but complementary threads of care and fear. Vigilance is exhausting but necessary, “Milk Sickness: A Mother Worries as Her Children Sleep” by Kari Ann Ebert seems to tell us. About the winning poem, Pollock writes:

We become “milk sick” when we drink milk from a cow that has grazed on poisonous plants. In “Milk Sickness: A Mother Worries as Her Children Sleep,” Kari Ann Ebert makes this condition a metaphor for maternal apprehension. The poison here is ophidian as snakes menace a pail of milk, “swim in sacrifice,” in that part of the body a mother gives up that her children might live. As with many parents, having children has expanded the speaker’s capacity for love and also her capacity for fear. As the speaker’s dread deepens, Ebert overlays a deft sonic network, heightening the poem’s emotions. In the end, the snakes’ movement and attendant noise become, as does fear, so encompassing that relief from them seems manufactured or illicit—“like stolen butter.” All in all, with an expert command of sound and image, Ebert captures how fear, especially maternal fear, acts on us and threatens to overwhelm us in the “opaque” hours of our lives.

Philadelphia Stories thanks Joe Sullivan for his support of this contest and his enduring friendship with Philadelphia Stories. We also thank Nicole Mancuso, contest coordinator and assistant poetry editor for her solid and consistent energy. We thank Yalonda Rice, managing editor, for her flexibility and patience. Mostly, we thank the poets who generously share their work with us and we encourage local writers to continue to do so throughout the year.

WINNER OF THE 2020 SANDY CRIMMINS NATIONAL PRIZE IN POETRY ($1000)

“Milk Sickness: A Mother Worries as Her Children Sleep,” Kari Ann Ebert (Dover, DE)

RUNNERS UP ($250 each)

“Feeding My Father Pudding While Watching Bonanza,”Chad Frame (Lansdale, PA)

“Lukens Steel, Coatesville, Pennsylvania,” Kyle Carrozza (Coatesville, PA)

“How to Ride a Train in the Andes,” Lupita Eyde-Tucker (Palm Bay, FL)

HONORABLE MENTIONS

“On Wassily Kandinsky’s Painting, ‘Little Painting in Yellow,’” Kathleen Shaw (Schwenksville, PA)

“Mother Explains,” Jane Miller (Wilmington, DE)

“Matthew,” Chad Frame (Lansdale, PA)

EDITOR’S CHOICES (Please view at PhiladelphiaStories.org)

“Lightbearers,” Tyler Dunstan (New York, NY)

“On the Solitary Death of Uncle Mike,” Sean Webb (Philadelphia, PA)

FINALISTS

“Inventory,” Cindy Ok (Iowa City, IA)

“The Others,” Ginny Pina (Wayne, PA)

“Darlings,” Dana Jaye Cadman (Mineola, NY)

“Heirloom,” Michelle Flores (Jacksonville, FL)

“What a Mother Lays on Her Son,” Jane Miller (Wilmington, DE)

“CDG,” Tyler Dunstan (New York, NY)

“Smoking Shelter,” Chad Frame (Lansdale, PA)

“That Long Haul,” Mary Finnegan (Philadelphia, PA)

“Ode to la Conquista” Lupita Eyde-Tucker (Palm Bay, FL)

“A Herringbone Pattern of Tiny Iowas,” Sean Webb (Philadelphia, PA)

Rescheduled: LitLife 2020

Rescheduled: LitLife 2020

~~WHEN: April 4, 2020, 9:30 am – 3:30 pm~~
~~WHERE: Sharon Latchaw Hirsh Community Center, Rosemont College, 1400 Montgomery Ave, Rosemont, PA 19010 (click here for campus map)~~

We hope that you will remain connected to Philadelphia Stories via social media [@philastories at Twitter] and our website, philadelphiastories.org. We are currently looking for poetry for the summer issue and we hope to see lots of poets submit their social distancing poems!

Look for LitLife programming during Push to Publish, October 10 at Rosemont College.

Please consider looking up our 2020 scheduled panelists and workshop leaders and supporting them! We asked them to join us originally because we thought you’d love their work and appreciate their insight. We still believe that. If you are currently spending time in isolation, consider ordering a book from one of these poets!

Bios for LitLife Panelists and Workshop Leaders

Ashley Davis a black Queer androfemme (they/she) performance artist, writer, human who works to center the intergenerational black femme and build spaces for rest and inner children to play. Ashley blends theater and poetics, publishing their work in journals such as Apiary (2020), and anthologies centering black joy, as well as performing with theatrical ensembles. 2016 Ashley performed at the National Poetry Slam where their team took 3rd place. Ashley plays with magic, fantasy, Afro-futurism & surrealism to deal with themes of surviving childhood sexual abuse (CSA), navigating mental health, examining patterns of intergenerational trauma, and building systems of collective care rooted in transformative justice and reconciliation.

Kirwyn Sutherland is a Clinical Research Professional and poet who makes poems centering the black experience in America. He is a Watering Hole fellow and has attended workshops/residencies at Cave Canem, Winter Tangerine, Poets House, Philadelphia Sculpture Gym, and Pearlstein Art Gallery at Drexel University. Kirwyn was a member of the 2015 Philadelphia Pigeon Slam Team that made Semi-Finals at the National Poetry Slam and also was a member of the 2016 Philadelphia Fuze Poetry Slam Team. Kirwyn’s work has been published in American Poetry Review, Blueshift Journal, APIARY Magazine, FOLDER, The Wanderer and elsewhere. Kirwyn has served as Editor of Lists/Book Reviewer for WusGood magazine and poetry editor for APIARY Magazine. Kirwyn is currently teaching Spoken Word/Poetry Performance at the University of the Arts. Kirwyn’s chapbook Jump Ship was released in December 2019 by Thread Makes Blanket Press and distributed by AK Press.

Yolanda Wisher is the author of Monk Eats an Afro (Hanging Loose Press, 2014) and the co-editor of Peace is a Haiku Song (Philadelphia Mural Arts, 2013). Wisher was named the inaugural Poet Laureate of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania in 1999 and the third Poet Laureate of Philadelphia in 2016. A Pew and Cave Canem Fellow, she was a Writer in Residence at Hedgebrook and Aspen Words and a CPCW Fellow in Poetics and Poetic Practice at the University of Pennsylvania. A former high school English teacher, she has been active in Philadelphia’s artistic and cultural sphere for two decades. Wisher founded and directed a Germantown neighborhood poetry festival, worked as Director of Art Education for Philadelphia Mural Arts, and has spearheaded numerous community-driven programs with partners such as The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Rosenbach Museum and Library, Historic Germantown, and the U.S. Department of Arts and Culture. Wisher currently works as the Curator of Spoken Word at Philadelphia Contemporary and regularly performs a unique blend of poetry and song with her band The Afroeaters. In collaboration with Philly literary organization Blue Stoop, Wisher recently launched the School of Guerrilla Poetics, a training ground for folks interested in nurturing and mobilizing communities through poetry. Wisher lives in Germantown. You can find more about her work and projects at yolandawisher.com, and you can listen to her podcast Love Jawns: A Mixtape here.

Liz Chang was 2012 Montgomery County Poet Laureate in Pennsylvania. Her 2018 chapbook Animal Nocturne is available from Moonstone Press. Her poems have recently appeared in Verse Daily, Origins Journal, Breakwater Review and Stoneboat Literary Journal, among others. She is an Associate Professor of English at Delaware County Community College.

Grant Clauser is the author of four books, most recently The Magician’s Handbook and Reckless Constellations. His awards include the Cider Press Review Book Award, the Dogfish Head Poetry Prize and the Montgomery County Poet Laureate. His poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Cortland Review, The Journal, The Literary Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Southern Poetry Review, and others. He’s a contributing editor to the online publication Cleaver and works as a senior editor for Wirecutter at the New York Times.

Gabriel Cleveland is the Managing Editor at CavanKerry Press. A poet and fiction writer with an MFA in Creative Writing from Pine Manor College, he is an avid video gamer and music lover as well as a mental health advocate, often working online to raise awareness, visibility, and money for psychological and psychosocial issues. Gabriel has spent several years in the field of caregiving for people with increased physical and/or mental needs and wants you to know that you’re not alone.

Shanna Compton’s most recent book is Creature Sounds Fade, forthcoming from Black Lawrence Press in 2020. Her poetry and essays are widely published, appearing in Best American Poetry, the Nation, American Poetry Review, and elsewhere. She is the founder of Bloof Books, and works for several other small presses as a freelance book designer. She lives in Lambertville, NJ. For more, see shannacompton.com.

Vernita Hall is the author of Where William Walked: Poems About Philadelphia and Its People of Color, winner of the Willow Books Grand Prize for Poetry and of the Robert Creeley Prize from Marsh Hawk Press; and The Hitchhiking Robot Learns About Philadelphians, winner of the Moonstone (Press) Chapbook Contest. Poems have appeared or are forthcoming in numerous anthologies and journals, including American Poetry Review, African American Review, Atlanta Review, and Mezzo Cammin. Hall holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Rosemont College and serves on the poetry review board of Philadelphia Stories.

Poet/Playwright, Maria James-Thiaw is CEO and founder of Reclaim Artist Collective (RAC), a nonprofit focused on arts programming for and about individuals in marginalized communities. She developed the American Griot Project, a program in which she teaches students to use research and oral history to develop choreopoems. She was inspired to start RAC after her first choreopoem, Reclaiming My Time, sold out 6 shows in 2018. The show was based on oral history research and featured poetic translations of women’s memories of the Civil Rights era. In 2018 works from Reclaiming My Time won the Art of Protest Poetry Prize from the Center of American Literary Studies at Penn State University. Maria is a spoken word artist and the author of three poetry books. After 16 years as a professor at Central Penn College, she enthusiastically took charge of the Creative Writing program at the Capital Area School for the Arts in Harrisburg, PA. She lives in the Harrisburg area with her husband and two little boys who are a constant source of both exhaustion and inspiration

Keith Kopka is the author of Count Four (University of Tampa Press, 2020). His poetry and criticism have recently appeared in Best New Poets, Mid-American Review, New Ohio Review, Berfrois, Ninth Letter, The International Journal of The Book, and many others. He is also the author of the critical text, Asking a Shadow to Dance: An Introduction to the Practice of Poetry and the recipient of the 2017 International Award for Excellence from the Books, Publishing, & Libraries Research Network. Kopka is a Senior Editor at Narrative Magazine and the co-founder and the Director of Operations for Writers Resist.

LindoYes is a spoken word artist, actor, and emcee born and raised in Philadelphia, PA. His work takes the beat of the city streets and transforms it from a sunrise to a starry throne. Paying homage to the wordsmiths that surround and inspire him daily, he embodies their character and champions their unique stories to audiences of all varieties. Seeking to create larger conversations with his art, LindoYes addresses the constructs of love, gender identity, and social injustice. LindoYes’ talents have allowed him to travel across the east coast featuring at various colleges such as Bucknell University, Haverford College, Ursinus College, Drexel University, Lincoln Unversity, Community College of Philadelphia and Cheney University of Pennsylvania. He has been a featured performer at venues such as BusBoys and Poets and SpitDat in DC and Virginia, The Drunken Retort in Michigan, and Urban Grind, Apache Cafe and Do You Lyrics Lounge in Atlanta. When LindoYes is not performing he operates on the organizational team for local Philadelphia open mic; Breedlove and the Freedom Party. He also works as a teaching artist helping youth express themselves through the mediums of creative writing, visual art and performing art linked to activism. They have taught at the following organizations ArtWell, EducationWorks, and Congreso. He has also done advocacy work with SoulsShot, Refuse Fascism Philly, Sunrise Movement Philly, and Moms Demand Action PA. LINDOYES! Creates images with words, taking audiences beyond their immediate experiences, he makes the world his canvas.

Pattie McCarthy is the author of six books, most recently Quiet Book from Apogee Press. Her previous books include Nulls (2014, Horse Less Press), Marybones (Apogee, 2012), Table Alphabetical of Hard Words (Apogee, 2010), Verso (2004), and Bk of H(r)s (Apogee, 2001). She has also written several chapbooks, most recently scenes from the lives of my parents (Bloof, 2013) and x y z && (Ahsahta, 2015). A former Pew Fellow in the Arts, she teaches at Temple University. Pattie’s chapbook mercy, a midden is forthcoming from Bloof in 2020.

Risa Pappas is a poet, filmmaker, writer, editor, audiobook narrator, and public speaker. She has most recently been published in the River Heron Review, Inklette Magazine, and bluntly magazine and is a senior editor at Tolsun Books. Risa received her MFA in creative writing at Fairleigh Dickinson University. She currently resides near Philadelphia.

Hayden Saunier is the author of four poetry collections: How to Wear This Body, Say Luck, Tips for Domestic Travel, and a chapbook, Field Trip to the Underworld. Her work has been widely published and awarded the Pablo Neruda Prize, Rattle Poetry Prize, Gell Poetry Award and Keystone Chapbook Prize. She is an actor with 30 years of theatre credits and appearances in The Sixth Sense, Mindhunter, House of Cards, Philadelphia Diary, and as the voice of a broken-down stove for Ikea. She is the founder/director of the poetry + improvisation performance group, No River Twice. (www.haydensaunier.com)

Fred Shaw is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh and Carlow University, where he received his MFA. He teaches writing and literature at Point Park University and Carlow University. A book reviewer and Poetry Editor for Pittsburgh Quarterly, his poem, “Argot,” was featured in the 2018 full-length documentary, Eating & Working & Eating & Working. The film focuses on the lives of local service-industry workers. His poem “Scraping Away” was selected for the PA Public Poetry Project in 2017 and his first full length collection, Scraping Away will be released by CavanKerry Press in April 2020. He lives in Pittsburgh with his wife and rescued hound dog.

J.C. Todd’s recent work explores the traumatic effects of war on women, both civilians and combatants. She is author of Beyond Repair, forthcoming in 2020 from Able Muse Press, What Space This Body, The Damages of Morning, a 2019 Eric Hoffer Award finalist, and a manuscript in-process responding to the life and work of Kåthe Kollwitz. In collaboration with visual artist MaryAnn L. Miller, she has published FUBAR (Lucia Press, 2016) and On Foot / By Hand (Lucia Press, 2018); both are in the collection of the National Museum of Women in the Arts. JC is the winner of the 2016 Rita Dove Prize in Poetry and holds fellowships in poetry from the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the Bemis Center and others. Her work has been published in American Poetry Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, THRUSH, The Paris Review, and Fifty Over Fifty.

Cleveland Wall is a poet, editor, and teaching artist. Her work has appeared in Philadelphia Stories, Möbius, Schuylkill Valley Journal, and beyond. She is a founding member of the poetry improv group No River Twice and cohost of Tuesday Muse, a monthly performance series at Bethlehem’s Ice House. She also performs with poetry/classical guitar combo The Starry Eyes. Her first poetry collection, Let X=X, was published by Kelsay Books, fall 2019.