George Bilgere has published six collections of poetry, including Imperial (2014);The White Museum(2010), which was awarded the Autumn House Poetry Prize; Haywire (2006), which on the May Swenson Poetry Award; and The Good Kiss(2002), which was selected by Billy Collinsto win the University of Akron Poetry Award. He has won numerous awards, including the Midland Authors Award and a Pushcart Prize. Bilgere has received grants from the Witter Bynner Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Fulbright Commission, and the Ohio Arts Council. His poems have appeared in numerous anthologies and journals including Poetry, Ploughshares, the Kenyon Review, Fulcrum,and the Best American Poetry series. <br />A resident of Ohio, Bilgere lives in Cleveland, where he teaches creative writing at John Carroll University.

George Bilgere has published six collections of poetry, including Imperial (2014);The White Museum(2010), which was awarded the Autumn House Poetry Prize; Haywire (2006), which on the May Swenson Poetry Award; and The Good Kiss(2002), which was selected by Billy Collinsto win the University of Akron Poetry Award. He has won numerous awards, including the Midland Authors Award and a Pushcart Prize. Bilgere has received grants from the Witter Bynner Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Fulbright Commission, and the Ohio Arts Council. His poems have appeared in numerous anthologies and journals including Poetry, Ploughshares, the Kenyon Review, Fulcrum,and the Best American Poetry series. A resident of Ohio, Bilgere lives in Cleveland, where he teaches creative writing at John Carroll University.

The Poet and The Poem

George Bilgere

Meg Eden's work is published or forthcoming in magazines including Prairie Schooner, Poetry Northwest, Crab Orchard Review, RHINO and CV2. She teaches creative writing at Anne Arundel Community College. She is the author of five poetry chapbooks, the novel "Post-High School Reality Quest (2017), and the forthcoming poetry collection Drowning in the Floating World (2020).

Meg Eden

Bro. Yao(Hoke S. Glover III) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Language, Literature, and Cultural Studies at Bowie State University. His poetry has been published in Ploughshares, African-American Review, Rattle, and other journals and anthologies. His first book, Inheritance, was published by Willow Books in Summer of 2016. For fifteen years he ran and operated Karibu Books, one of the nation's largest African American book stores. He also writes non-fiction and his essay "Hospital for the Negro Insane" was a finalist in the Crab Orchard John Guyon Non-Fiction Literary Prize in 2015, and his essay the "Fifty Four" on African American book stores and book culture was a finalist in the Missouri Review Jeffrey E. Smith's Editor's Prize in 2018. Much of his current work focuses on reading "yin' in African American culture.

Brother Yao Hoke Glover III

Doritt Carroll is a native of Washington, DC. She received her undergraduate and law degrees from Georgetown University. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Main Street Rag, North American Review, Coal City Review, Eunoia Review, Poet Lore, Rattle, Gargoyle, Nimrod, and Cherry Tree, among others. Her collection GLTTL STP was published by Brickhouse Books in 2013. Her chapbook Sorry You Are Not An Instant Winner was published in 2017 by Kattywompus. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.

Doritt Carroll

Lauren K. Alleyne is the author of two collections of poetry, Difficult Fruit (Peepal Tree Press 2014), and Honeyfish (New Issues & Peepal Tree, 2019). Her work has appeared in numerous publications including The New York Times, The Atlantic, Ms. Muse, Women?s Studies Quarterly, Interviewing the Caribbean, The Crab Orchard Review, among many others. Recent honors for her work include a 2017 Phillip Freund Alumni Prize for Excellence in Publishing (Cornell University), the 2016 Split This Rock Poetry Prize, and a Picador Guest Professorship in Literature (University of Leipzig, Germany, 2015). She is currently Assistant Director of the Furious Flower Poetry Center and an Associate Professor of English at James Madison University.

Lauren Alleyne

Temple Cone is the author of four books of poetry:Guzzle, That Singing, The Broken Meadow (winner of the Old Seventy Creek Poetry Press Series Prize), and No Loneliness (winner of the Future Cycle Press Poetry Book Prize). In addition, he has published seven poetry chapbooks, as well as reference works on Cormac McCarthy, Walt Whitman, and 20th-century American poetry. He holds an MA in creative writing from Hollins University, an MFA in poetry from the University of Virginia, and a PhD in literature from the University of Wisconsin. He lives with his family in Maryland, where he is Professor of English at the U.S. Naval Academy and the inaugural Poet Laureate for the city of Annapolis.

Temple Cone

Garrett J. Brown’s first book of poems, Manna Sifting, won the Liam Rector First Book Prize from Briery Creek Press in 2009, and his chapbook, Cubicles, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2014. His other awards include first place in the Poetry Center of Chicago’s Juried Reading, judged by Jorie Graham; runner-up in the Maryland Emerging Voices competition; and a Creative Writing Fellowship from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His poetry and creative nonfiction have appeared in The Black Warrior Review, Poetry East, TriQuarterly, Natural Bridge, The Account, and Passages North. He makes his home in Baltimore and is an Associate Professor at Anne Arundel Community College.

Garrett Brown

Shirley J. Brewer (Baltimore, MD) graduated from careers in bartending and speech therapy. She serves as poet-in-residence at Carver Center for Arts & Technology in Baltimore, and also teaches creative writing workshops to seniors. Recent poems garnish Barrow Street, Comstock Review, Naugatuck River Review, Plainsongs, Poetry East, Slant, and many other journals and anthologies. Shirley was awarded the first Creativity Prize for Excellence in Plorking (Play + Work) from the University of Baltimore, where she earned her Masterês degree in Creative Writing/Publishing Arts. Shirleyês poetry books include A Little Breast Music, 2008, Passager Books, After Words, 2013, Apprentice House, Bistro in Another Realm, 2017, Main Street Rag.

Shirley Brewer

The Write Blend Poetry Circle was officially formed in 2018, when six named poets agreed to become part of a larger collaborative to bring cultural diversity to communities through an expansive range of their voices and poetry.

Write Blend Poetry Collective

Pamela Murray Winters is the author of The Unbeckonable Bird, a poetry collection published by FutureCycle Press in 2018. She has an MFA in poetry from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is at work on a second full-length collection of poems and a few chapbooks. Pam lives in Maryland with her husband and a small menagerie.

Pamela Murray Winters

Barbara DeCesare is a graduate of the Goddard College MFA-W program. She is the author of jigsaweyesore (Anti-Man Press), Adrift (Seventh Wave), and Silent Type (Paper Kite Press). Barbara curated The Prufrock Project, an art exhibit based on the T. S. Eliot poem, cast audience members to perform in her series of small plays You’re Soaking In It, and took the title in the Fear No Lit Literary Page Match automatic writing competition. Her poems and short fiction have been published in Folio, Poetry, Alaska Quarterly, Tarpaulin Sky and many others.

Barbara DeCesare

Irish poet, Jane Clarke's first collection, The River, was published by Bloodaxe Books in 2015 to public and critical acclaim. Her second book-length collection, When the Tree Falls was published by Bloodaxe in September 2019 and her illustrated booklet of poems, All the Way Home, was published by Smith/Doorstop in April 2019.<br />The River was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature’s Ondaatje Prize, given for a distinguished work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry evoking the spirit of a place. In 2016 Jane won the Hennessy Literary Award for Emerging Poetry and the inaugural Listowel Writers’ Week Poem of the Year Award. She was awarded an Arts Council of Ireland Literary Bursary in 2017.<br />Jane holds a BA in English & Philosophy from Trinity College, Dublin, an MPhil in Writing from the University of South Wales, and has a background in psychoanalytic psychotherapy. She grew up on a farm in Roscommon and now lives with her partner in Glenmalure, Co. Wicklow, where she combines writing with her work as creative writing tutor and group facilitator.

Irish poet, Jane Clarke's first collection, The River, was published by Bloodaxe Books in 2015 to public and critical acclaim. Her second book-length collection, When the Tree Falls was published by Bloodaxe in September 2019 and her illustrated booklet of poems, All the Way Home, was published by Smith/Doorstop in April 2019.The River was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature’s Ondaatje Prize, given for a distinguished work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry evoking the spirit of a place. In 2016 Jane won the Hennessy Literary Award for Emerging Poetry and the inaugural Listowel Writers’ Week Poem of the Year Award. She was awarded an Arts Council of Ireland Literary Bursary in 2017.Jane holds a BA in English & Philosophy from Trinity College, Dublin, an MPhil in Writing from the University of South Wales, and has a background in psychoanalytic psychotherapy. She grew up on a farm in Roscommon and now lives with her partner in Glenmalure, Co. Wicklow, where she combines writing with her work as creative writing tutor and group facilitator.

Jane Clarke

A life-long musician, writer, and creative, Rob spent most of his childhood reading comic books, playing games, and making music. Graduated from the University of Virginia in 2002 with a degree in Anthropology, with a focus on ethnomusicology, he has spent the intervening years living and working as a musician and music professional. Aside from writing comics, Rob also works as an audio designer and engineer, and plays in numerous musical projects, including The Vailix, a female-fronted hard rock concept band based around the world of the Cloud Ocean. In his spare time he plays fetch with his miniature Australian cattle dogs, Luna and Astra.

Rob Richmond

Mervyn Taylor, a Trinidad-born poet and longtime Brooklyn resident, has taught at Bronx Community College, The New School and in the New York City public school system. He is the author of six books of poetry, including The Waving Gallery (2014), and most recently, Voices Carry (2017). About his work, Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott said, “Taylor’s is a quiet voice. His poems possess an admirable degree of subtlety, and a tone that keeps him separate and unique.” Currently, he serves on the advisory board of Slapering Hol Press.

Mervyn Taylor

Natwar Gandhi served Washington, DC, as tax commissioner and independent chief financial officer. This book narrates his journey from a primitive Indian town—no paved streets, electricity, telephone or running water—to Mumbai and then, through hard work, determination and good luck, to New York. After academic and corporate stints, Gandhi became the CFO of America's capital and played a significant role in stabilizing the city's finances, transforming it from a deficit-plagued jurisdiction into a financially healthy municipality. Still the Promised Land provides an uplifting message for present-day America, where immigrants are often reviled and immigration is viewed as bad for the country.

Natwar Gandhi

Refresh your life with THE POET AND THE POEM. Hear America’s most beloved poets in reading and conversation. Award winning poet/host Grace Cavalieri presents poets reading their work and talking about their art. After 41 years consecutive on public radio, cited by The Encyclopedia of Broadcasting for longevity, THE POET AND THE POEM has makes history for one reason: It’s powerful. Voted tops in the nation for ENTERTAINMENT IN MEDIA by The National Commission On Working Women, ALL NEW 30-minute shows are now available. (Made possible by donors McNeil and Shashaani.)

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The Poet and The Poem

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