Note: Please click on photos to enlarge for better viewing.
I’m glad you don’t have to take my word for it that we have a terrific, poetic lineup for Poetry Bread Presents with Sam Castello on GMCR/KURU 89.1 FM’s Kindred Continuum segment this Monday, September 12, 2022, at 10am mountain, rebroadcast on Sunday, September 18, at 4pm mountain. You can view the lineup in the spreadsheet below, and, of course, you can listen to the show during its broadcast/stream.
It has been my pleasure getting to know a little about the poets whose work will air on the show through their poetry and their bios. I hope it will be your pleasure as well. With the exception of Grace Cavalieri’s bio the poets are listed in order of appearance in the program.
Although Grace’s poem, Who We Are, climaxes the program, I’m beginning with her bio because her decades-long show, The Poet and the Poem, which is accessible from her website, was the impetus of the idea for the 9/12 Poetry Bread Presents program.
Collective Voices |
Grace and the other poets granted me permission to use their readings, and one reading from each of the poets, excerpted from the Poet and the Poem program I listened to, formed the backbone and guiding light of the 9/12 radio program.
In addition to the four poets from Maryland, USA mentioned above, the show presents the work of 18 poets from five additional states and five different countries. I’ve presented below most (sometimes more, sometimes less) of the information the poets submitted with their bios.
POET: GRACE CAVALIERI
POEM: Who We Are
Grace Cavalieri is the author of 26 books and chapbooks of poetry, and she's also written texts and lyrics performed for opera, television and film. She has had 26 plays produced on American stages, the 21st of which, Quilting the Sun, was presented at the Smithsonian Institution. Grace teaches poetry workshops throughout the country at numerous colleges. She produced and hosted The Poet and the Poem weekly, on WPFW-FM (1977-1997), presenting 2,000 poets to the nation. She now presents this series to public radio from the Library of Congress via NPR satellite and Pacifica Radio celebrating 42 years on air in 2019.
Grace
has received the 2013 George Garrett Award, the Pen-Fiction Award, the Allen
Ginsberg Poetry Award, The Corporation for Public Broadcasting Silver Medal,
and awards from the National Commission on Working Women, the WV Commission on
Women, the American Association of University Women, is the current poet
laureate of Maryland, received the DC Poet Laureate Award from Dolores
Kendrick, the Paterson lifetime Achievement Award, and more. She won a Paterson
Excellence Award for What
I Would do for Love, and The Bordighera Poetry Prize for Water
on the Sun. She received the inaugural Columbia Merit Award for
"significant contributions to poetry."
There is much more to Grace than I have space for here, but you
can delve deeper at Grace’s website and a
bit more about The Poet and the Poem from the Library of Congress.
POET: SISTAH JOY ALFORD
POEM: What Does Your Soul Say?
POET: JAY ROSE ANA
POEM:
Do Not Be Afraid To Enter The Dark
PUBLISHED:
YouTube
AVAILABLE:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipnJsW5zkNM
Jay Rose Ana is a spoken word performance poet, host of Words Collide Poetry Open-Mic and The Poetic Podcast. Her written work, focusing on positive mental health, and life as a transgender woman, has been published in numerous publications. Her spoken word poems have been featured on both local and national radio. In 2021, her poem MY JOURNEY was featured on the BBC Upload Festival. Jay Rose Ana can be found on social YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/c/JayRoseAnasThoughts
POET: TERESA GALLION
POEM: The Peaceful Realm
Teresa E. Gallion is a seeker on a journey to work on unfolding spiritually in this present lifetime. Writing is a spiritual exercise for Teresa. Her passions are traveling the world and hiking the mountain and desert landscapes of the western United States. Her journeys into nature are nurtured by the Sufi poets Rumi and Hafiz. The land is sacred ground and her spiritual temple where she goes for quiet reflection and contemplation. She has published four books: Walking Sacred Ground, Contemplation in the High Desert, Chasing Light, a finalist in the 2013 New Mexico/Arizona Book Awards and her most recent book, Scent of Love, a finalist in the 2021 New Mexico/Arizona Book Awards. She has two CDs, On the Wings of the Wind and Poems from Chasing Light. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. You can find more on Teresa at
POET: JULIAN MATTHEWS
POEM: Other
(Lain, lain)
PUBLISHED: Delhiwallah Poetry Collective Anthology 2021 (India)
AVAILABLE: https://www.dpcpoetry.org/books
Julian Matthews is an emerging poet from Malaysia, of mixed-race minority, who is published in The American Journal of Poetry, Beltway Poetry Quarterly and Borderless Journal, among others. He stumbled onto poetry by accident five years ago at a writing workshop. That happy accident has turned into a rabid compulsion. He is still extricating himself from the crash. Welcome to his recovery. If you wish to support him, please paypal.me/poetjulian or send him Wordle answers at http://linktr.ee/julianmatthews
POET: RAWLE IAM JAMES
POEM: Human/male
Rawle Iam would tell you, that he is a student of life and thus life is his greatest teacher. He is a personal leadership and spiritual coach, and poet that uses poetry as an invitation to examine life. He is committed to being of service to those seeking a holistic and inside-out approach to understanding themselves and tapping into their vault of wisdom. You are your purpose. You are not broken, nor do you need fixing. Rawle was born in Trinidad & Tobago and grew up in Brooklyn, New York. He also spent time in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and lived the majority of his adult years in Toronto, ON, and Kelowna, BC, Canada. He spent over 25 years in the corporate world in a variety of roles performing various tasks alongside good-hearted and well-intentioned people. His book of poetry, in flow with Grace, will be out this September, and his work can be found at www.rawlejames.ca and https://linktr.ee/rawleiam.
POET: FIZZA ABBAS
POEM: The Unburnt Toast
Fizza Abbas is a writer based in Karachi, Pakistan. Her work has appeared in more than 100 journals, including Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Poetry Village, The Cabinet of Heed and London Grip. She has authored two poetry collections: Ool Jalool and Bakho- A girl with unkempt tresses. She has also been a Best of The Net nominee and Oxford Brookes Poetry International Competition 2021’s shortlist. Besides writing, she runs an interview series forwriters on her YouTube channel. She can be reached at @fizzawrites on Twitter.
POET: JENNIFER ELISE WANG
POEM: Stinky Tofu
PUBLISHED: https://feralpoetry.net/stinky-tofu-by-jennifer-elise-wang/
Jennifer Elise Wang (she/they) is a non-binary femme in STEM from Dallas, Texas. When she's not doing neuroscience research, she enjoys writing, dancing, and learning how to skateboard and snowboard. She has been published in New Verse News, FERAL, and Southern Arizona Press. She can be found at www.facebook.com/jeniversewritings and @JeniverseAbr on Twitter.
POET: DR. MICHAEL ANTHONY INGRAM
POEM: Shelling Beans
Dr. Michael Anthony Ingram is a retired university professor and social change activist. A Washington DC resident, he is committed to employing the arts, specifically poetry, to disseminate information and raise awareness about issues related to power, identity, and oppression. Widely known as The Counseling Poet, he has gained an international reputation as a spoken word artist and performance poet. A Pushcart poetry prize nominee, Dr. Ingram has traveled extensively, reciting his works and conducting workshops on building cultural competency and empathy skills through poetry and metaphor. He hosts Quintessential Listening: Poetry Online Radio, which “offers an online vehicle for artists to engage in conversational interviews about poetry.”POET: MARY DEZEMBER
POEM: Rosalind Franklin Speaks
PUBLISHED: Still Howling: Poems by Mary Dezember (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016)
AVAILABLE: Amazon.com Mary Dezember, PhD, is a poet, an author of fiction and non-fiction, an educator, an arts scholar and arts advocate. She believes in inclusivity, pluralism and creating awareness that catalyzes healing. She enjoys performing her poetry and advocating the creativity of others. Her publications include several non-fiction essays and articles and two books of poetry: Earth-Marked Like You (Sunstone Press, 2011) and Still Howling (CreateSpace Independent Publishing, 2016) with the title poem being the First Place winner of Best Beat Poem Contest, 2016, sponsored by Beatlick Press. Her novel, Wild Conviction, a winner of the Inkshares 2020 All-Genre Manuscript Contest, is in the works to be published. She is the founder of Creatives in Conversation, an online venue that includes artist performances and interviews, and is also a guide for Santa Fe Art Tours in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She is currently creating the website PoetryAboutArt.com. She teaches classes, offers events, and publishes through her business, Dezember LLC. Her author website is MaryDezember.com.
POET: JULIA FRICKE ROBINSON
POEM: Fireflies
Julia Fricke Robinson divides her time between visiting children and grandchildren in Colorado, Indiana and New York and living, dancing and writing in a community of artists, writers, performers, activists and otherwise interesting people in beautiful Silver City, New Mexico, where the weather is just about perfect. Her published books include All I Know and Between the Desert and the Wetlands, both available on Amazon.com.
POET: SIBUCO (TATENDA MURANGI)
POEM: A Soldier’s Dilemma
POET: DOREEN SPUNGIN
POEM:
After Listening to Wooden Ships
Brooklyn native, Doreen (Dd.) Spungin, author of the collection, Tomorrow Smells Invisible (Words With Wings Press, 2020), hosts events for Poets In Nassau and Performance Poets Association on Long Island. Her poetry can be found in anthologies as well as in print and on-line journals, most recently: L I Quarterly; Corona, An Anthology of Poems; Maintenant 16; First Literary Review East; Poets To Come; The Avocet; Paumonok, Transition; Nassau County Poet Laureate Society Review, and PPA Literary Review. Several of her poems have been set to music by NY composer, Julie Mandel. Spungin lives on Long Island with her very supportive husband, Neil. She lives for love, prays for peace and writes for her sanity and will read anywhere for a cup of coffee or an Earl Grey tea. Spungin can be found on Facebook. Search for Doreen Deutsch Spungin. A “sign-off” poem or daily/nightly thought is posted, often with an accompanying photo or piece of art. Tomorrow Smells Invisible is available at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com.
POET: ANDRÉ BRENARDO TAYLOR
POEM: Draped
POET:
HEIDI KASA
POEM:
Notes Taken in Research for a Poem About School Shootings
Heidi Kasa writes fiction and poetry. Her work has appeared in several journals and at City Lights bookstore in San Francisco. Her work has been a finalist for a Black Lawrence Press award and shortlisted for a Fractured Lit award. Kasa’s fiction chapbook, Split, was published by Monday Night Press in August 2022. Whenever she can, Kasa returns to Massachusetts, where she grew from a sapling, and to California, where she started blooming. She edits nonfiction and currently lives in Austin, Texas. Find more of her work at www.heidikasa.com
POET: RICK LUPERT
POEM: Shelach
PUBLISHED: in God Wrestler: A poem for every Torah Portion (Ain’t Got No Press, 2017)
Rick Lupert has been involved with poetry in Los Angeles since 1990. He is the recipient of the 2017 Ted Slade Award, and the 2014 Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center Distinguished Service Award, a 3-time Pushcart Prize Nominee, and a Best of the Net nominee. He served as a co-director of the Valley Contemporary Poets for 2 years, and created Poetry Super Highway. Rick hosted the weekly Cobalt Cafe reading for almost 21 years which has lived on as a weekly Zoom series since early 2020. His spoken word album Rick Lupert Live and Dead featured 25 studio and live tracks. He’s authored 26 collections of poetry, including I Am Not Writing a Book of Poems in Hawaii, The Tokyo-Van Nuys Express, and God Wrestler: A Poem for Every Torah Portion (Ain’t Got No Press) and edited the anthologies A Poet’s Siddur, Ekphrastia Gone Wild, A Poet’s Haggadah and the noir anthology The Night Goes on All Night. He also writes and draws (with Brendan Constantine) the daily web comic Cat and Banana, and writes a Jewish poetry column for JewishJournal.com. He has been lucky enough to read his poetry all over the world. See the following links for more on Rick: https://www.jewishpoetry.net/, https://www.instagram.com/rickpoet, https://www.twitter.com/rickpoet, https://www.catandbanana.com/.
POET: SYLVIA DIANNE (LADI DI) BEVERLY
POEM: Gracious Actions Prosper
POET:
ELISE STUART
POEM:
Blue Dark
Elise Stuart, Poet Laureate of Grant County in 2014-2017, has held numerous poetry workshops for youth in schools around Grant County. Students made poem flags of their original poems, which graced schools, libraries and coffee shops. She began an open poetry group in Silver City that is alive and growing, and also hosts a monthly poetry event at the Tranquilbuzz Coffee House. Her first collection of poetry, Another Door Calls, came out in the spring 2017, then a memoir My Mother and I, We Talk Cat in the fall of the same year. She is currently working on a new book of poetry and vignettes.
POET: J R TUREK
POEM:
This Poem
PUBLISHED:
Global Anthology, Cooch Behar Press, 2022
AVAILABLE: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BCXSXSCM/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tpbk_p4_i3
J R (Judy) Turek, Walt Whitman Birthplace 2019 Long Island Poet of the Year, Superintendent of Poetry for the Long Island Fair, 2020 Hometown Hero by the East Meadow Herald, Bards Laureate 2013-2015, is an internationally published poet, translated into Korean, Romanian, French, and Italian; editor, mentor, workshop leader, and 25 years as Moderator of the Farmingdale Creative Writing Group; she has 2 Pushcart Prize nominations and recipient of the Conklin Prize For Poetry, and was named a 2017 NYS Woman of Distinction. J R has written a poem a day for the past 18 years and finished 2021 with 487 new poems.
J R is the author of Midnight on the Eve of Never, B is for Betwixt and Between, A is for Almost Anything, Imagistics, They Come And They Go, and most recent 24 in 24. J R, The Purple Poet, hosts two events per month for Performance Poets Association (PPA); she’s the 1st Associate Editor for The North Sea Poetry Scene, PPA, and The Bards Initiative; she was the face of Princess Ronkonkoma Productions for 16 years, and will appear in as International Artist in the Lounge Interview for The Sailors Review Issue 62. Judy lives on Long Island with her soul-mate husband, Paul, her dogs, and her extraordinarily extensive shoe collection. She can be reached at msjevus@optonline.net.
POEM: The Ill Communication
Vincent J. Calone is a poet, playwright, actor, and director. He graduated SUNY Oswego '95, studied under Lewis Turco author of The New Book of Forms. Vincent considers himself a neo/modern formalist poet. He is glad to be part of the wonderful local poetry and drama scene on Long Island and can be seen reading live at any number of local events, including Neir's, Jack Jack's and Flash Mob Poetry, as well as online events such as Spo-fest and Cobalt Poets. Vincent's posted a new poem every day on Raven Wire Poetry Prompts on Facebook continuously from 08/01/22. He dedicates all his work to the two great loves in his life, Danyalle and Jewelia. Vincent is proud to be part of the Brater Agency writing collective.
POET: MBONISI ZIKHALI ZOMKHONTO
POEM: I Would Have Told My Carpentry Teacher I love Trees
Mbonisi Zikhali is his name and Zomkhonto is his totem. He was born in Makokoba, the oldest township in Bulawayo, the second largest capital of Zimbabwe, Africa. He currently resides in Windsor, Canada, and is a spoken word artist, storyteller, youth mentor, community services worker and mental wellness advocate. He won my first poetry award when he was eight years old. He considers himself an afro-empath and is driven to ensure that people find joy in the power of words and story-telling. He is a member of Artcite Windsor’sCommunity Connector and Free Verse Poets, which both seek to incorporate poetry and drumming as a way to re-engage the community in artistic ways, while providing a safe space to share stories and support each other emotionally. His most recent engagement with Artcite Windsor was as a featured artist in 2021’s Emancipate the Landscape, a month-long exhibition featuring digital artists Kiki Symone and Talysha Bujold-Abu, which ran from August-September. Mobonisi has also been the featured reader on multiple virtual open mics and will be the featured reader at Cobalt Poets on Tuesday, September 27, 2022.
POET: JC WAYNE
POEM:
I Love You
JC Wayne is a poet, visual artist, cartographer of the unseen, mentor and adventure guide, certified aging teaching artist, emissary of beauty, perception, insight, and discovery. She created The Poartry Project (poartry.org) to light a path of good in the world through the practice of “poartry.” It is JC’s calling and goal that The Poartry Project and its Voicing Art programs and experiences of positive community gathering and creative collaboration engage, equip, and empower lives as loving world-builders who wield the energy of language and visuals as conscious acts of good to build loving worlds through loving words and art.
JC holds a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations and Art
History with Honors from Brown University and achieved a Master of Arts in
Diplomatic History and International Comparative Politics as a distinguished
Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellow at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at
Harvard and Tufts Universities. She had an early career as a visible and
celebrated futurist thought leader and adviser to world leaders. She continues
to evolve her creative practice and collaborations with constant travel,
circulating throughout the year among her three creative hubs of New Mexico, Vermont,
and Chicago. She currently serves as Director of Youth Activities for the New
Mexico State Poetry Society and Youth Chair of the National Federation
of State Poetry Societies.
POET:
CHIP WILLIFORD
POEM:
The Scars of History (see video below)
Chip Williford is a writer of prose, poetry, and short stories. He is a photographer, videographer, filmmaker, documentarian, family historian, researcher, a good listener, and relatable storyteller. He is Director of Poetry Street and Poetry Street on The Road. He has had fiction and poetry published in SBC Magazine, Nassau County Poet Laureate Society Review, Vol. VIII, 2020, Performance Poets Association 25th Annual Literary Review, The Sailors Review, Issues #58 and #59, and Moonstone Arts. He was a contributing writer in Oh! What a Ride, 50 Years in the Airline Travel Industry by author Rev. ElTyna McCree in 2016. Chip was co-featured at For Better or Verse with poet Nina Yavel. Chip is also the stage manager for the Love of Vinyl Music Hall of Fame Awards. His poetry may be found at chipwilliford.com and www.poetrystreetontheroad.com
POET: HIRAM LAREW
POEM:
Clatter
Wow, T.A., this is amazing work you've done to create this program. Thank you so much.
ReplyDeleteThank you for being a part of the program and for taking the time to leave a comment Heidi!🙏
ReplyDelete